. Q&A Prompt Strategy
“I need to build a user authentication system for my web application. Before providing a solution, please ask me relevant questions about my specific requirements and constraints so you can give me the most appropriate implementation advice.”
Pros and Cons Prompt Strategy
“I’m developing a product catalog application that needs to store product information, images, and customer reviews. Please analyze the pros and cons of using MongoDB, PostgreSQL, and Firebase for this application. Consider factors like scalability, query capabilities, ease of development,
Stepwise Chain of Thought Prompt Strategy and maintenance requirements.”
“Help me refactor the code in service.js. Go one step at a time. Do not move to the next step until I give the keyword ‘next’.”
Role Prompt Strategy
“Act as a senior security engineer with 10 years of experience in web application security. Review the following authentication code for my React application and identify any security vulnerabilities, potential edge cases, or implementation flaws. Be particularly attentive to common OWASP security risks.”
Advanced Prompting: Combined Strategies
Role + Q&A Strategy
The Prompt: “Act as a DevOps engineer with expertise in Kubernetes. I need help setting up a CI/CD pipeline for our microservices architecture. Before providing a solution, please ask me questions about our current infrastructure, team capabilities, and specific requirements to ensure your guidance is tailored to our situation.”
Stepwise + Pros and Cons Strategy
The Prompt: “I need to migrate our application from a monolithic architecture to microservices. Let’s approach this one step at a time, and for each step, I’d like you to present multiple approaches with their pros and cons. First, help me identify which components should be separated into microservices. Don’t proceed to the next step until I type ‘next’.”
Example: “Before writing any code, outline the step-by-step logic you will use to solve this. Critique your own plan for edge cases, then write the code.
Role + Stepwise Strategy
The Prompt: “Act as a senior database architect. I need to optimize our PostgreSQL database that’s experiencing performance issues with our e-commerce application. Walk me through the optimization process step by step, explaining your reasoning at each stage. Wait for my confirmation before moving to the next step.”
Q&A + Pros and Cons + Stepwise Strategy
The Prompt: “I’m designing a real-time data processing system for IoT devices. First, please ask me clarifying questions about our requirements and constraints. Then, present the pros and cons of different architectural approaches (Kafka vs. RabbitMQ, serverless vs. container-based, etc.). Finally, once we’ve settled on an approach, guide me through the implementation step by step, waiting for my confirmation at each stage.”
The Golden Structure: PTCF
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Persona: Who is Gemini? (e.g., “Senior Python Backend Engineer”).
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Task: What exactly do you need? (e.g., “Write a script to parse this CSV”).
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Context: What are the constraints? (e.g., “Use Pandas, handle missing dates, max runtime 5s”).
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Format: How should the output look? (e.g., “Single code block, no markdown explanations, include inline comments”).
Bad Prompt: “Fix this code.”
Good Prompt: “Act as a Senior Java Developer (Persona). Refactor this function (Task) to reduce cognitive complexity. The code parses user logs for a banking app, so security and error handling are paramount (Context). Output the refactored code with Javadoc comments explaining your changes (Format).”
The “Test-First” Approach
The Prompt: “I need a function that calculates shipping costs. First, generate 5 distinct unit test cases covering edge cases (negative weights, zero distance). Then, write the function to pass these tests.”
The “Self-Correction” Loop
The Prompt: [After it generates code] “Stop. Review the code you just wrote. Are there any security vulnerabilities or mistakes or performance bottlenecks? If so, fix them and show me the V2.”
The “Senior Dev” Initialization Prompt
Start your coding session with a “System Prompt” like this. You can copy-paste this to set the stage for the entire conversation.
“You are an expert Senior Software Engineer acting as my pair programmer.
Your Standards:
Code Quality: specific, modular, and DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself).
Security: Always sanitize inputs and follow OWASP best practices.
Comments: Do not state the obvious (e.g.,
i++ // increment i). Explain why a complex decision was made.Error Handling: Never swallow errors silently.
Protocol:
If my request is ambiguous, ask clarifying questions before coding.
If you see a better way to solve the problem than what I asked, suggest it as an alternative.
Always output a brief ‘Usage Example’ with your code.”
How to Debug with AI
Don’t just paste the error. The AI needs the “State of the World.”
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Don’t say: “It didn’t work.”
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Do say:
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“I ran the code and got this specific error: [Paste Error Log].”
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“Here is the input data that caused the crash: [Paste Data Snippet].”
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“My hypothesis is that the date format is wrong, but I am not sure.”
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