Prompt Engineering for Agentic Workflows
Chapter 1: Foundations of Agentic AI Systems
Defining Agentic Workflows
Core Components of AI Agents
The Function of Prompt Engineering in Agentic Systems
Contrasting Agent Prompts with Standard Prompts
Overview of Agent Architectures
Methods for Assessing Agent Performance
Hands-on: Analyzing a Simple Agent's Task Execution
Quiz for Chapter 1
Chapter 2: Advanced Prompting for Agent Control
Structuring Prompts for Sequential Operations
Refining Instructions for Complex Agent Actions
Assigning Roles and Personas to Agents
Utilizing Few-Shot Examples for Agent Guidance
Chain-of-Thought and Tree-of-Thought in Agent Prompts
Controlling Agent State via Prompt Design
Prompting for Self-Correction and Error Handling
Practice: Crafting Prompts for Coherent Agent Behavior
Quiz for Chapter 2
Chapter 3: Prompt Engineering for Tool Use
Principles of Tool-Augmented Language Models
Prompting Agents for Tool Selection and Operation
Formatting Tool Specifications for LLM Comprehension
Managing Tool Inputs and Outputs through Prompts
Prompts for Interacting with APIs
Addressing Errors During Tool Execution via Prompts
Designing Prompts for Novel Tool Integration
Hands-on: Guiding an Agent to Use a Web Search Tool
Quiz for Chapter 3
Chapter 4: Prompts for Agent Planning and Task Management
Introduction to AI Planning in Agent Systems
Prompting for Goal Specification and Refinement
Breaking Down Complex Problems using Prompts
Incorporating Constraints and Preferences in Agent Plans
Iterative Planning and Re-planning with Prompt Adjustments
Prompt Strategies for Hierarchical Task Decomposition
Evaluating Plan Viability and Quality
Practice: Prompting an Agent to Formulate a Detailed Plan
Quiz for Chapter 4
Chapter 5: Managing Agent Memory with Prompts
The Significance of Memory in Agent Operations
Prompt Strategies for Short-Term Memory and Context Windows
Information Condensation Techniques for Prompts
Prompting for Long-Term Information Retrieval
Structuring Prompts for Accessing Knowledge Stores
Managing Information Consistency and Beliefs
Maintaining Task Focus Across Extended Interactions
Hands-on: Prompting an Agent with Dynamic Information Streams
Quiz for Chapter 5
Chapter 6: Debugging and Optimizing Prompts in Agentic Systems
Common Issues in Agent Prompt Implementations
A Systematic Approach to Prompt Iteration and Testing
Effects of Prompt Chaining on Agent Outputs
Methods for Analyzing Agent Action Sequences
Comparing Prompt Variations for Agent Effectiveness
Logging and Monitoring for Prompt Improvement
Organizing and Versioning Prompts for Agents
Hands-on: Refining Prompts to Resolve an Agent Workflow Issue
Quiz for Chapter 6
Maintaining Task Focus Across Extended Interactions
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- Lost in the Middle: How Language Models Use Long Contexts, Nelson F. Liu, Kevin Lin, John Hewitt, Ashwin Paranjape, Michele Bevilacqua, Fabio Petroni, Percy Liang, 2023 Transactions of the Association for Computational Linguistics (TACL) DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2307.03172 - Examines the challenges LLMs face in processing and retrieving information from long input contexts, highlighting issues like attention decay and the 'lost in the middle' phenomenon, directly relevant to goal dilution.
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to LLaMA-based Agents: A Comprehensive Overview, Shuai Wang, Junda Wu, Bin Li, Weilin Zhao, Fan Wu, Kai Zheng, 2024 arXiv preprint arXiv:2403.04509 DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2403.04509 - Offers an overview of agentic systems built on LLMs, covering architectures, memory, and the difficulties of sustaining task focus and goal coherence in long-running operations.
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