AI & DataIntermediate
Few-shot Prompting
PronunciationFYOO-shot PROM-pt-ing
Definition
Providing a few examples within the prompt to guide the LLM toward a specific output format or behavior.
Where you hear it
When tuning model outputs, writing system prompts, or improving accuracy without retraining.
Examples
We used few-shot prompting to teach the model how to format JSON responses.
Adding three classification examples via few-shot prompting fixed the incorrect category outputs.
Common mistake
Assuming you need dozens of examples, when usually two to five well-chosen examples are enough for the model to understand the pattern.