What a prompt contains
A prompt can include your question, examples, background information, and the format you want. An app may add its own instructions, including a system prompt that sets the model’s role and rules.
These instructions guide the reply but do not permanently change the model.
Give the model a useful brief
“Summarise this report” leaves a lot to guess. “Summarise this report in five bullets. Include the decisions, their owners, and anything unresolved” gives the model a clearer task and a result you can check. Examples help when you need an unusual format.
Good wording cannot guarantee correct or safe answers. A document or webpage may contain a prompt-injection attempt, so teams should test prompts on real tasks and make sure their apps handle outside text carefully.