Prompt Chaining

What Is Prompt Chaining?

Prompt chaining is a fundamental technique for improving AI results: break complex tasks into sequential steps where each step's output feeds into the next. For example, to write a blog post: first generate an outline, then write each section based on the outline, then review and refine the complete draft. Each step builds on previous results.

Prompt chaining improves results in several ways: it breaks complexity into manageable pieces (easier for the model to handle accurately), it enables quality control (you can review and improve intermediate outputs), and it allows specialization (different prompts optimized for different steps). The technique is simple but highly effective.

Prompt chaining is used extensively in content generation, code generation, analysis, and research workflows. The trade-off is cost and latency: more steps mean more API calls and longer execution times. Optimization techniques like batching can help, and caching can prevent redundant work.