Skill 13: System Prompt Learning（系统提示学习范式）

Source: https://x.com/karpathy/status/1921368644069765486 "System prompt learning — missing LLM learning paradigm"

Core Principle

The system prompt is a textbook. Write it like one.

Karpathy's insight: there are three learning modes for LLMs (pretrain, finetune, RL) — but there's a fourth that's massively underused: system prompt learning. Explicitly encoding strategy into the system prompt is more sample-efficient than retraining and more reliable than hoping the model figures it out.

Think of it as writing a textbook for the LLM before each task. Not just instructions — strategy with reasoning.

The System Prompt Learning Framework

Good system prompts have three layers (mirroring how humans learn):