Prompt decomposition
Prompt decomposition is breaking one complex request into a sequence of smaller prompts, each handling a single step and feeding the next.
Decomposition beats a single large prompt whenever the task has genuinely separate stages, because each stage can be checked and corrected in isolation. The cost is orchestration: something has to carry state between the steps.
Related terms
- Prompt chaining
- Prompt chaining is connecting several prompts so that the output of one becomes the input of the next, forming a pipeline.
- Step-back prompting
- Step-back prompting is asking a model to state the general principle behind a question before answering the specific question.
More on techniques
See the full glossary, read the guides, or put it into practice in the prompt builder.