senior-prompt-engineer

name	senior-prompt-engineer
description	This skill should be used when the user asks to "optimize prompts", "design prompt templates", "evaluate LLM outputs", "build agentic systems", "implement RAG", "create few-shot examples", "analyze token usage", or "design AI workflows". Use for prompt engineering patterns, LLM evaluation frameworks, agent architectures, and structured output design.
license	MIT + Commons Clause
metadata	{"version":"1.0.0","author":"borghei","category":"engineering","domain":"prompt-engineering","updated":"2026-03-31T00:00:00.000Z","tags":["prompt-optimization","llm-evaluation","agents","prompt-engineering"]}

Senior Prompt Engineer

Prompt engineering patterns, LLM evaluation frameworks, and agentic system design.

Table of Contents

• Quick Start
• Tools Overview
  • Prompt Optimizer
  • RAG Evaluator
  • Agent Orchestrator
• Prompt Engineering Workflows
  • Prompt Optimization Workflow
  • Few-Shot Example Design
  • Structured Output Design
• Reference Documentation
• Common Patterns Quick Reference

---

Quick Start

# Analyze and optimize a prompt file
python scripts/prompt_optimizer.py prompts/my_prompt.txt --analyze

# Evaluate RAG retrieval quality
python scripts/rag_evaluator.py --contexts contexts.json --questions questions.json

# Visualize agent workflow from definition
python scripts/agent_orchestrator.py agent_config.yaml --visualize

---

Tools Overview

1. Prompt Optimizer

Analyzes prompts for token efficiency, clarity, and structure. Generates optimized versions.

Input: Prompt text file or string Output: Analysis report with optimization suggestions

Usage:

# Analyze a prompt file
python scripts/prompt_optimizer.py prompt.txt --analyze

# Output:
# Token count: 847
# Estimated cost: $0.0025 (GPT-4)
# Clarity score: 72/100
# Issues found:
#   - Ambiguous instruction at line 3
#   - Missing output format specification
#   - Redundant context (lines 12-15 repeat lines 5-8)
# Suggestions:
#   1. Add explicit output format: "Respond in JSON with keys: ..."
#   2. Remove redundant context to save 89 tokens
#   3. Clarify "analyze" -> "list the top 3 issues with severity ratings"

# Generate optimized version
python scripts/prompt_optimizer.py prompt.txt --optimize --output optimized.txt

# Count tokens for cost estimation
python scripts/prompt_optimizer.py prompt.txt --tokens --model gpt-4

# Extract and manage few-shot examples
python scripts/prompt_optimizer.py prompt.txt --extract-examples --output examples.json

---

2. RAG Evaluator

Evaluates Retrieval-Augmented Generation quality by measuring context relevance and answer faithfulness.

Input: Retrieved contexts (JSON) and questions/answers Output: Evaluation metrics and quality report

Usage:

# Evaluate retrieval quality
python scripts/rag_evaluator.py --contexts retrieved.json --questions eval_set.json

# Output:
# === RAG Evaluation Report ===
# Questions evaluated: 50
#
# Retrieval Metrics:
#   Context Relevance: 0.78 (target: >0.80)
#   Retrieval Precision@5: 0.72
#   Coverage: 0.85
#
# Generation Metrics:
#   Answer Faithfulness: 0.91
#   Groundedness: 0.88
#
# Issues Found:
#   - 8 questions had no relevant context in top-5
#   - 3 answers contained information not in context
#
# Recommendations:
#   1. Improve chunking strategy for technical documents
#   2. Add metadata filtering for date-sensitive queries

# Evaluate with custom metrics
python scripts/rag_evaluator.py --contexts retrieved.json --questions eval_set.json \
    --metrics relevance,faithfulness,coverage

# Export detailed results
python scripts/rag_evaluator.py --contexts retrieved.json --questions eval_set.json \
    --output report.json --verbose

---

3. Agent Orchestrator

Parses agent definitions and visualizes execution flows. Validates tool configurations.

Input: Agent configuration (YAML/JSON) Output: Workflow visualization, validation report

Usage:

# Validate agent configuration
python scripts/agent_orchestrator.py agent.yaml --validate

# Output:
# === Agent Validation Report ===
# Agent: research_assistant
# Pattern: ReAct
#
# Tools (4 registered):
#   [OK] web_search - API key configured
#   [OK] calculator - No config needed
#   [WARN] file_reader - Missing allowed_paths
#   [OK] summarizer - Prompt template valid
#
# Flow Analysis:
#   Max depth: 5 iterations
#   Estimated tokens/run: 2,400-4,800
#   Potential infinite loop: No
#
# Recommendations:
#   1. Add allowed_paths to file_reader for security
#   2. Consider adding early exit condition for simple queries

# Visualize agent workflow (ASCII)
python scripts/agent_orchestrator.py agent.yaml --visualize

# Output:
# ┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
# │            research_assistant           │
# │              (ReAct Pattern)            │
# └─────────────────┬───────────────────────┘
#                   │
#          ┌────────▼────────┐
#          │   User Query    │
#          └────────┬────────┘
#                   │
#          ┌────────▼────────┐
#          │     Think       │◄──────┐
#          └────────┬────────┘       │
#                   │                │
#          ┌────────▼────────┐       │
#          │   Select Tool   │       │
#          └────────┬────────┘       │
#                   │                │















python scripts/agent_orchestrator.py agent.yaml --visualize --format mermaid

---

Prompt Engineering Workflows

Prompt Optimization Workflow

Use when improving an existing prompt's performance or reducing token costs.

Step 1: Baseline current prompt

python scripts/prompt_optimizer.py current_prompt.txt --analyze --output baseline.json

Step 2: Identify issues Review the analysis report for:

• Token waste (redundant instructions, verbose examples)
• Ambiguous instructions (unclear output format, vague verbs)
• Missing constraints (no length limits, no format specification)

Step 3: Apply optimization patterns

Issue	Pattern to Apply
Ambiguous output	Add explicit format specification
Too verbose	Extract to few-shot examples
Inconsistent results	Add role/persona framing
Missing edge cases	Add constraint boundaries

Step 4: Generate optimized version

python scripts/prompt_optimizer.py current_prompt.txt --optimize --output optimized.txt

Step 5: Compare results

python scripts/prompt_optimizer.py optimized.txt --analyze --compare baseline.json
# Shows: token reduction, clarity improvement, issues resolved

Step 6: Validate with test cases Run both prompts against your evaluation set and compare outputs.

---

Few-Shot Example Design Workflow

Use when creating examples for in-context learning.

Step 1: Define the task clearly

Task: Extract product entities from customer reviews
Input: Review text
Output: JSON with {product_name, sentiment, features_mentioned}

Step 2: Select diverse examples (3-5 recommended)

Example Type	Purpose
Simple case	Shows basic pattern
Edge case	Handles ambiguity
Complex case	Multiple entities
Negative case	What NOT to extract

Step 3: Format consistently

Example 1:
Input: "Love my new iPhone 15, the camera is amazing!"
Output: {"product_name": "iPhone 15", "sentiment": "positive", "features_mentioned": ["camera"]}

Example 2:
Input: "The laptop was okay but battery life is terrible."
Output: {"product_name": "laptop", "sentiment": "mixed", "features_mentioned": ["battery life"]}

Step 4: Validate example quality

python scripts/prompt_optimizer.py prompt_with_examples.txt --validate-examples
# Checks: consistency, coverage, format alignment

Step 5: Test with held-out cases Ensure model generalizes beyond your examples.

---

Structured Output Design Workflow

Use when you need reliable JSON/XML/structured responses.

Step 1: Define schema

{
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "summary": {"type": "string", "maxLength": 200},
    "sentiment": {"enum": ["positive", "negative", "neutral"]},
    "confidence": {"type": "number", "minimum": 0, "maximum": 1}
  },
  "required": ["summary", "sentiment"]
}

Step 2: Include schema in prompt

Respond with JSON matching this schema:
- summary (string, max 200 chars): Brief summary of the content
- sentiment (enum): One of "positive", "negative", "neutral"
- confidence (number 0-1): Your confidence in the sentiment

Step 3: Add format enforcement

IMPORTANT: Respond ONLY with valid JSON. No markdown, no explanation.
Start your response with { and end with }

Step 4: Validate outputs

python scripts/prompt_optimizer.py structured_prompt.txt --validate-schema schema.json

---

Reference Documentation

File	Contains	Load when user asks about
references/prompt_engineering_patterns.md	10 prompt patterns with input/output examples	"which pattern?", "few-shot", "chain-of-thought", "role prompting"
references/llm_evaluation_frameworks.md	Evaluation metrics, scoring methods, A/B testing	"how to evaluate?", "measure quality", "compare prompts"
references/agentic_system_design.md	Agent architectures (ReAct, Plan-Execute, Tool Use)	"build agent", "tool calling", "multi-agent"

---

Common Patterns Quick Reference

Pattern	When to Use	Example
Zero-shot	Simple, well-defined tasks	"Classify this email as spam or not spam"
Few-shot	Complex tasks, consistent format needed	Provide 3-5 examples before the task
Chain-of-Thought	Reasoning, math, multi-step logic	"Think step by step..."
Role Prompting	Expertise needed, specific perspective	"You are an expert tax accountant..."
Structured Output	Need parseable JSON/XML	Include schema + format enforcement

---

Common Commands

# Prompt Analysis
python scripts/prompt_optimizer.py prompt.txt --analyze          # Full analysis
python scripts/prompt_optimizer.py prompt.txt --tokens           # Token count only
python scripts/prompt_optimizer.py prompt.txt --optimize         # Generate optimized version

# RAG Evaluation
python scripts/rag_evaluator.py --contexts ctx.json --questions q.json  # Evaluate
python scripts/rag_evaluator.py --contexts ctx.json --compare baseline  # Compare to baseline

# Agent Development
python scripts/agent_orchestrator.py agent.yaml --validate       # Validate config
python scripts/agent_orchestrator.py agent.yaml --visualize      # Show workflow
python scripts/agent_orchestrator.py agent.yaml --estimate-cost  # Token estimation

---

Troubleshooting

Problem	Cause	Solution
Token count seems inaccurate	Character-based estimation varies by language and special characters	Use --model flag matching your target model; Claude uses a 3.5 char/token ratio vs 4.0 for GPT models
Clarity score is low despite clear prompt	Vague-pattern detector flags common words like "analyze" or "some" even in valid contexts	Review flagged lines individually; not every match is a true issue --- focus on genuinely ambiguous instructions
Few-shot examples not detected	Examples do not follow the Input:/Output: or Example N: labeling convention	Format examples with explicit Input: and Output: prefixes so the extractor can parse them
RAG evaluator shows 0.0 for all metrics	Input JSON schema mismatch --- missing question, content, or question_id keys	Verify JSON uses the expected keys (question/query, content/text, question_id/query_id)
Agent YAML parsing fails	Built-in YAML parser is simplified and cannot handle advanced syntax (anchors, multi-line blocks)	Convert config to JSON, or restructure YAML to use only simple key-value pairs and dash-prefixed lists
Optimization produces minimal changes	--optimize only performs whitespace normalization, not semantic rewriting	Use --analyze first to get suggestions, then manually apply structural improvements before re-running --optimize
Mermaid diagram renders incorrectly	More than 6 tools overflow the generated subgraph	Reduce tool count in the config or manually edit the Mermaid output to split into sub-diagrams

---

Success Criteria

• Prompt clarity score above 70/100 on all production prompts, measured via prompt_optimizer.py --analyze
• Token efficiency improved by 30%+ after applying optimization suggestions and removing redundant content
• RAG context relevance at or above 0.80 across evaluation sets, verified by rag_evaluator.py
• Answer faithfulness at or above 0.95 with zero unsupported claims in critical workflows
• Agent validation passes with zero errors for all deployed agent configurations
• Cost per agent run within budget --- estimated monthly spend confirmed via agent_orchestrator.py --estimate-cost
• Few-shot example coverage includes edge cases --- at least 1 simple, 1 complex, and 1 negative example per prompt template

---

Scope & Limitations

This skill covers:

• Static prompt analysis: token counting, clarity scoring, structure detection, and optimization suggestions
• RAG evaluation: context relevance, answer faithfulness, groundedness, and retrieval metrics (Precision@K, ROUGE-L, MRR, NDCG)
• Agent workflow design: configuration validation, ASCII/Mermaid visualization, and token cost estimation
• Few-shot example extraction and management from existing prompts

This skill does NOT cover:

• Live LLM calls or runtime prompt testing --- all analysis is static/deterministic (see senior-ml-engineer for LLM integration)
• Vector database setup or embedding generation --- RAG evaluator scores pre-retrieved contexts only (see senior-data-engineer for pipeline orchestration)
• Fine-tuning, RLHF, or model training workflows (see senior-ml-engineer for model deployment)
• Production monitoring, A/B test execution, or real-time drift detection (see senior-data-scientist for experiment design)

---

Integration Points

Skill	Integration	Data Flow
senior-ml-engineer	LLM integration and model deployment	Optimized prompts from this skill feed into llm_integration_builder.py prompt templates
senior-data-scientist	A/B test design for prompt experiments	experiment_designer.py defines test parameters; this skill provides the prompt variants to compare
senior-data-engineer	RAG pipeline orchestration	pipeline_orchestrator.py builds the retrieval pipeline; this skill evaluates its output quality
senior-fullstack	End-to-end application scaffolding	Fullstack apps consume agent configs validated by agent_orchestrator.py
senior-security	Prompt injection and adversarial input review	Security analysis covers the attack surface; this skill ensures prompts include defensive constraints
senior-qa	Quality assurance for AI-powered features	QA test suites validate that optimized prompts produce consistent outputs in production

---

Tool Reference

prompt_optimizer.py

Purpose: Static analysis tool for prompt engineering. Estimates token counts, scores clarity and structure, detects ambiguous instructions and redundant content, extracts few-shot examples, and generates optimized prompt versions.

Usage:

python scripts/prompt_optimizer.py <prompt_file> [options]

Parameters:

Flag	Short	Type	Default	Description
prompt	(positional)	string	(required)	Path to the prompt text file to analyze
--analyze	-a	flag	off	Run full analysis (clarity, structure, issues, suggestions)
--tokens	-t	flag	off	Count tokens and estimate cost only
--optimize	-O	flag	off	Generate whitespace-optimized version of the prompt
--extract-examples	-e	flag	off	Extract few-shot examples (Input/Output pairs) as JSON
--model	-m	choice	gpt-4	Model for token/cost estimation. Choices: gpt-4, gpt-4-turbo, gpt-3.5-turbo, claude-3-opus, claude-3-sonnet, claude-3-haiku
--output	-o	string	(none)	Write results to this file path
--json	-j	flag	off	Output analysis as JSON instead of human-readable report
--compare	-c	string	(none)	Path to a baseline analysis JSON file for comparison

Example:

python scripts/prompt_optimizer.py prompt.txt --analyze --model claude-3-sonnet --json

Output Formats:

• Default (text): Human-readable report with metrics, scores, detected sections, issues, and suggestions
• JSON (--json): Structured PromptAnalysis object with keys: token_count, estimated_cost, model, clarity_score, structure_score, issues, suggestions, sections, has_examples, example_count, has_output_format, word_count, line_count
• Token-only (--tokens): Single-line token count and cost estimate
• Examples (--extract-examples): JSON array of {input_text, output_text, index} objects
• Optimized (--optimize): Cleaned prompt text with normalized whitespace

---

rag_evaluator.py

Purpose: Evaluates Retrieval-Augmented Generation quality by measuring context relevance (lexical overlap, term coverage), answer faithfulness (claim-level verification), groundedness (ROUGE-L), and retrieval metrics (Precision@K, MRR, NDCG).

Usage:

python scripts/rag_evaluator.py --contexts <contexts.json> --questions <questions.json> [options]

Parameters:

Flag	Short	Type	Default	Description
--contexts	-c	string	(required)	Path to JSON file with retrieved contexts. Expected keys per object: question_id/query_id, content/text
--questions	-q	string	(required)	Path to JSON file with questions and answers. Expected keys per object: id, question/query, answer/response, expected/ground_truth
--k		int	5	Number of top contexts to evaluate per question
--output	-o	string	(none)	Write detailed report to this JSON file
--json	-j	flag	off	Output as JSON instead of human-readable text
--verbose	-v	flag	off	Include per-question detail breakdowns in the report
--compare		string	(none)	Path to a baseline report JSON for metric comparison

Example:

python scripts/rag_evaluator.py --contexts retrieved.json --questions eval_set.json --k 10 --verbose --output report.json

Output Formats:

• Default (text): Human-readable report with summary, retrieval metrics (context relevance, Precision@K), generation metrics (faithfulness, groundedness), issues, and recommendations
• JSON (--json): Structured RAGEvaluationReport object with keys: total_questions, avg_context_relevance, avg_faithfulness, avg_groundedness, retrieval_metrics, coverage, issues, recommendations, question_details
• Verbose (--verbose): Adds per-question question_details array containing individual context scores and faithfulness breakdowns

---

agent_orchestrator.py

Purpose: Parses agent configurations (YAML or JSON), validates tool registrations and flow correctness, generates ASCII or Mermaid workflow diagrams, and estimates token costs per run and monthly spend.

Usage:

python scripts/agent_orchestrator.py <config_file> [options]

Parameters:

Flag	Short	Type	Default	Description
config	(positional)	string	(required)	Path to agent configuration file (YAML or JSON)
--validate	-V	flag	off	Validate agent configuration (errors, warnings, tool status). Runs by default if no other action is specified
--visualize	-v	flag	off	Generate workflow diagram
--format	-f	choice	ascii	Visualization format. Choices: ascii, mermaid
--estimate-cost	-e	flag	off	Estimate token usage and costs
--runs	-r	int	100	Daily run count for monthly cost projection
--output	-o	string	(none)	Write output to this file path
--json	-j	flag	off	Output validation and cost results as JSON

Example:

python scripts/agent_orchestrator.py agent.yaml --validate --visualize --format mermaid --output workflow.md

Output Formats:

• Validation (text): Agent info, tool status with OK/WARN indicators, flow analysis (max iterations, token estimate, loop detection), errors, and warnings
• Validation (JSON, --json): Structured ValidationResult object with keys: is_valid, errors, warnings, tool_status, estimated_tokens_per_run, potential_infinite_loop, max_depth
• Visualization (--visualize): ASCII box-drawing diagram (default) or Mermaid flowchart (--format mermaid) showing the agent pattern flow and registered tools
• Cost estimation (--estimate-cost): Token range per run, cost range per run, and projected monthly cost at the specified daily run rate