Anchoring
Domain: Prompt Engineering
🎯 Motivation
Starting a prompt with a strong, specific anchor (format, tone, example) that guides all subsequent output.
📋 Concrete Example
‘Here is a Python docstring format:\n"""One-line summary.\n\nParameters:\n name (str): Description\n"""\nNow write a docstring for this function: [function]’ The example anchors the format.
🔗 Analogy
Starting a meeting with an agenda - the agenda (anchor) shapes the entire discussion. Everyone stays on topic because the anchor set the structure. Anchoring in prompts sets the structure for the response.