A prompt is the input you send to a model: system instructions, user messages, and any context or examples. Prompt quality drives output quality, and prompt length drives cost. In Infere, prompts can be stored and versioned as PML files rather than hardcoded strings.
Why it matters
The prompt is the program. Small changes in wording, examples, or structure can move output quality more than swapping models - and longer prompts cost more on every request.
How it works
A prompt is usually a system message plus a sequence of user and assistant messages, and sometimes retrieved context or examples. Keeping prompts in version control rather than hardcoded strings makes them reviewable and reproducible.