PRACTICAL LLM PROMPT ENGINEERING by MAREK C. SOLVANE

Prompt engineering is easy to demonstrate. Reliable prompt engineering is harder to build. A prompt that works once is not enough when your application must handle changing inputs, structured data, retrieval, tools, model updates, edge cases, and real users. Practical LLM Prompt Engineering moves beyond collections of prompt tricks and teaches a systematic approach to designing prompt-driven systems for large language models and generative AI applications. You will learn how to turn vague tasks into precise prompt specifications, structure instructions and context, use examples effectively, design reliable output contracts, and test prompts against representative cases instead of judging them from a handful of impressive responses. The book also shows you how to: • build prompt evaluation and regression test suites • measure accuracy, reliability, and failure behavior • debug prompt failures systematically • work with structured outputs and validation • engineer retrieval and grounded LLM workflows • design safer tool-calling and agentic applications • control permissions and consequential actions • version prompts and model dependencies • monitor production behavior with logs, metrics, and traces • turn real production failures into stronger regression tests A complete production case study brings these ideas together, showing how a prompt progresses from an initial implementation through failure analysis, revision, evaluation, retrieval, tool integration, deployment, and monitoring. Written for developers, AI builders, technical professionals, and serious practitioners, this is a practical guide to moving from prompts that simply look good in demos to LLM systems that can be tested, maintained, and improved with engineering discipline.