Related papers: Is It Time To Treat Prompts As Code? A Multi-Use C…

LLM prompting is widely used for naturally stated tasks, yet it is unreliable it may succeed on a few test cases but fail at deployment time. We study performance prediction: given a program, either symbolic (e.g. Python) or a prompt…

The performance of pre-trained Large Language Models (LLMs) is often sensitive to nuances in prompt templates, requiring careful prompt engineering, adding costs in terms of computing and human effort. In this study, we present experiments…

Prompt optimization is essential for enhancing the performance of Large Language Models (LLMs) in a range of Natural Language Processing (NLP) tasks, particularly in scenarios of few-shot learning where training examples are incorporated…

Gradient-free prompt optimization methods have made significant strides in enhancing the performance of closed-source Large Language Models (LLMs) across a wide range of tasks. However, existing approaches make light of the importance of…

Software systems usually provide numerous configuration options that can affect performance metrics such as execution time, memory usage, binary size, or bitrate. On the one hand, making informed decisions is challenging and requires domain…

Automatic prompt engineering aims to enhance the generation quality of large language models (LLMs). Recent works utilize feedbacks generated from erroneous cases to guide the prompt optimization. During inference, they may further retrieve…

Large language models (LLMs) are widely used for open-ended tasks, but underspecified prompts can lead to low-quality answers and additional interaction. This paper studies whether structured prompt design improves response quality while…

Recent advances in large language models (LLMs) have led to their popularity across multiple use-cases. However, prompt engineering, the process for optimally utilizing such models, remains approximation-driven and subjective. Most of the…

Large Reasoning Models (LRMs) such as DeepSeek-R1 and OpenAI o1 have demonstrated remarkable capabilities in various reasoning tasks. Their strong capability to generate and reason over intermediate thoughts has also led to arguments that…

The ability of large language models (LLMs) to $``$learn in context$"$ based on the provided prompt has led to an explosive growth in their use, culminating in the proliferation of AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Bard. These AI…

Large Language Models (LLMs) have shown impressive performance as general purpose agents, but their abilities remain highly dependent on prompts which are hand written with onerous trial-and-error effort. We propose a simple and…

The performance of Large Language Models (LLMs) in reasoning tasks depends heavily on prompt design, with Chain-of-Thought (CoT) and self-consistency being critical methods that enhance this ability. However, these methods do not fully…

Pretrained large language models (LLMs) are increasingly utilized across a wide range of natural language processing (NLP) tasks due to their impressive capabilities as few-shot learners. Recent techniques, such as chain-of-thought (CoT)…

Large language models (LLMs) enable strong text generation, and in general there is a practical tradeoff between fine-tuning and prompt engineering. We introduce Simplify-This, a comparative study evaluating both paradigms for text…

Developers now routinely interact with large language models (LLMs) to support a range of software engineering (SE) tasks. This prominent role positions prompts as potential SE artifacts that, like other artifacts, may require systematic…

Testing plays a pivotal role in ensuring software quality, yet conventional Search Based Software Testing (SBST) methods often struggle with complex software units, achieving suboptimal test coverage. Recent works using large language…

Large language models (LLMs) excel on new tasks without additional training, simply by providing natural language prompts that demonstrate how the task should be performed. Prompt ensemble methods comprehensively harness the knowledge of…

Evolutionary prompt optimization has demonstrated effectiveness in refining prompts for LLMs. However, existing approaches lack robust operators and efficient evaluation mechanisms. In this work, we propose several key improvements to…

Large Language Models (LLMs) have significantly advanced software engineering (SE) tasks, with prompt engineering techniques enhancing their performance in code-related areas. However, the rapid development of foundational LLMs such as the…

The effectiveness of large language models (LLMs) is closely tied to the design of prompts, making prompt optimization essential for enhancing their performance across a wide range of tasks. Many existing approaches to automating prompt…