Prompt Design with Gemini

Google's prompt design guidance for Gemini is practical and short on superstition. The core advice: give clear instructions, show examples, and add just enough context. The same clarity that helps any model helps here.

Instructions and examples

• Lead with a clear instruction that states the task and the output you want.
• Add a few examples (few-shot) when the format or judgment is hard to describe.
• Include only the context the model actually needs to do the job.

Reasoning is increasingly built in

Newer Gemini models reason more capably on their own, which reduces the need for elaborate chain-of-thought scaffolding. Where you used to hand-write reasoning steps, you can often just state the problem clearly and let the model think, adjusting the thinking level for harder tasks.