The Prompt Engineering Cheat Sheet
Top 10 patterns, XML structure, model picker, and the 20 do's and don'ts that make prompts work in 2026.
By Atilla Kürük · Promptolis · 2026 edition
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What's in the guide
A 6-page printable reference of the patterns that actually work — used by engineers, PMs, and operators shipping AI features in production.
- 10 prompt patterns with copy-paste templates
- The XML structure used by Anthropic + OpenAI internal teams
- Model selection decision tree (Claude vs ChatGPT vs Gemini)
- 20 do's and 20 don'ts calibrated to 2026 reality
- The 5 mistakes that cause 80% of bad outputs
What you'll learn
- Why XML beats Markdown for structured prompts
- When to use temperature 0 vs 0.7
- The role + principles + input + output-format scaffold
- How to debug a prompt that produces correct-but-not-quite output
- Which patterns transfer across model families
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Why I wrote this: I'm Atilla Kürük, the author of Promptolis (588+ Originals + this guide). I make AI prompts + tools for solo builders and small teams. Everything here is what I actually use — distilled, free, no upsells. More about me →
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