Text¶

A textual prompt is usually a valid metaprompt:

Hi, LLM! How are you feeling today?

will be expanded to the same string, because it does not contain any MetaPrompt constructs.

Variables¶

Here's a variable: [:variable_name].

If a variable is used before first assignment, it is treated as a required
prompt parameter automatically.

[:variable_name=it can be reassigned to any value, however]
[:variable_name=Including a value containing its old value: [:variable_name]]

Comments¶

[# Text for the human reader can be written like this.

   Comments must be well-formed metaprompt expressions too -
   in the future comment parse trees will be used to convey
   additional semantic info (e.g. documentation).

   Comments are ignored during evaluation.
]

Conditionals¶

[:if the sky is sometimes blue
 :then this...
 :else that...
]

:if expressions will be expanded at runtime.

First, the following text will be fed to an LLM:

Please determine if the following statement is true.
Do not write any other output, answer just "true" or "false".
The statement: the sky is sometimes blue

The answer will determine the execution branch. If the answer is not literally "true" or "false", an exception will be thrown after a few retries

Meta-prompting¶

LLM says: [$ Hi, LLM! How are you today?]

The [$ prompt will be executed and its output will be inserted at its position during expansion. This enables powerful techniques of prompt rewriting:

[$ [$ Improve this LLM prompt: [:prompt]]]

Notice the double nesting of [$ - the improved prompt will be fed back into an LLM.

Modules¶

Every .metaprompt file is a function.

Unbound variables used in a file are its parameters, that must be provided.

Hello, [:what]! [# `what` is a parameter ]
[:who=you] [# `who` is NOT a parameter, because it is assigned before first use]
How are [:who] feeling today?

File imports¶

The following expression will include ./relative-import.metaprompt file (relative to the directory of the file, NOT to the current working dir):

[:use ./relative-import]

Package imports¶

NOT IMPLEMENTED

Passing parameters¶

[:use ./relative-import
 :someParameter= arbitrary value, potentially using
   any other MetaPrompt constructs
 :otherParameter= another value
]

Special variables¶

• MODEL - used to determine active LLM id.