Systems: Beyond Simple Prompts

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You Already Know Prompts

If you’ve used ChatGPT or any AI tool, you’ve written prompts:

"Write a joke about programming"

And when you want to improve results, you tweak the prompt:

"Write a FUNNY joke about programming, make it witty not cheesy"

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But Real AI Applications Are More Complex

In production, your AI might:

• Use multiple prompts working together
• Call different models for different tasks
• Adjust temperature, max tokens, and other parameters
• Process inputs through several steps
• Depend on context, rules, and configurations

Suddenly you’re not managing one prompt—you’re juggling an entire system of interconnected pieces.

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Enter: Systems

A System captures all the moving parts that affect your AI’s behavior:

• Your prompts (yes, plural!)
• Model selection and parameters
• Processing steps and logic
• Any configuration that changes the output

Instead of tracking these pieces separately, a System bundles them into one testable unit.

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A Simple Example

Even a basic joke bot has multiple variables:

SYSTEM: Joke Bot

Inputs:
└── topic: "programming"

Configurations:
├── Model: "gpt-3.5" or "gpt-4"
├── Style: "dad-joke" or "witty"
├── Temperature: 0.5 to 1.0
└── (and any other settings that matter)

Output:
└── joke: "Why do programmers prefer dark mode?..."

Change any configuration, and you get different results. Systems let you test these variations systematically instead of guessing.

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Why This Matters

• Everything in one place: No more scattered prompts and configs
• Test combinations: See how different settings work together
• Track what works: Know exactly which configuration is in production
• Scale confidently: From single prompts to multi-step workflows

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Your Turn: Build a Joke Bot in 5 Minutes

The best way to understand Systems is to build one. We’ve created a simple example that shows the concept in action:

→ Try the Joke Bot Quickstart

In just 5 minutes, you’ll see how even a simple AI task benefits from thinking in Systems rather than individual prompts.

Ready to level up from copy-pasting prompts? Systems are how teams build AI that’s reliable, testable, and scalable. Start small with the Joke Bot—the concepts will click immediately.