Knowledge Map

From Prompt to Loop Engineering

How we work with AI has been climbing for years. Prompt engineering, context engineering, steering engineering, loop engineering: these four stages form one spine. This map hangs all twenty-odd related articles I have written onto it. Enter at any station and just read down.

Four stages, one spine

The further down you go, the less you manage how AI does it and the more you focus on "what you want." Click any card to start there.

1

Prompt engineering1 article

Fine-tuning how you phrase a single instruction. This is the starting point and the first thing most people learn. A single-line prompt has a low ceiling, so the focus moves up quickly.

Why prompts "exit": to see why a single-line prompt is no longer enough, read the evolution passage at the start of Stage 3’s "Stop Writing Rigid Instructions."
Red = "From Prompt to Steering Engineering" series 20 articles across four stages