What is a prompt template?
A prompt template is a saved prompt with blanks for the facts that change. The instructions stay. The job, the date, and the price come from the person or the system filling the blanks. A prompt library is a shelf of those templates.
Also called: prompt library, merge field
In plain English
The prompts on this site are templates: a stable ask, plus fields. If you save a full email with last month's client still in it, that is not a template. That is a leak waiting to happen. Variables, or merge fields, are the blanks. A template has blanks, and the blanks are the point. Name them: customer, date, amount, promise. If someone fills a blank with a guess, the template trained them to do that. Store the template next to the SOP. When the offer changes, change the template the same day. Old copies in people's docs will keep the old price alive. Give the template a version number in the corner. When a customer quotes an old promise, you can see which version produced it. Retire old versions out of the shared drive, not only out of the app. A template without an owner rots. Stamp the retired copy VOID the same afternoon. VOID belongs in the rubber stamp, not only in the filename.
How an owner would use it
Write the template next to the SOP. Name every blank. Say what happens if a blank is empty. Have someone who did not write it fill it in once. If they are confused, the template is not done.
Common mistakes
Templates that still contain a real phone number or a one-off discount will repeat them. A library of forty templates nobody can find is a junk drawer. Do not build a template for a task you have done once. Do not let the model rewrite the template's rules while filling the blanks.
A worked example
A mural painter
The quote prompt has blanks, not last month's wall
This is an illustration, not a customer result. The template asks for wall size, indoor or outdoor, and the budget the client already stated. A new inquiry fills those three. The old client's wall measurement is not in the template. If budget is empty, the draft asks for it instead of inventing one.
Related terms
Prompts and guides
Questions owners ask
What is a prompt template?
A prompt template is a reusable instruction with blanks for the facts that change from job to job.
How do I write a template the staff will actually use?
Keep the blanks obvious, forbid guessing when a blank is empty, and store it next to the SOP for that job.
What is a variable or merge field?
It is one blank, such as the customer's first name or the appointment time. The workflow or the person fills it. The model should not invent it.
Product guides are on AI apps for business.