Definition
Plain language
A fill-in-the-blank form for writing the text you send to a model.
As stated in the literature
A parameterized prompt with slots filled from fixed pools; randomizing slot contents yields controlled experimental variation and lets per-slot effects be estimated by regression.
Also called: prompt templates, template
Why it matters: It lets researchers vary one piece at a time and measure exactly what each piece does, instead of guessing why one phrasing worked better.
For example, "You are a [ROLE]. [GREETING] Please answer: [QUESTION]" can be filled thousands of different ways from prepared lists.
Heard on the show
“… paper has a nice secondary example where a single execute call cracks a non-crashing bug — a Django template engine that was silently misbehaving because two different objects had inconsistent settings. …”Episode 005 — Why a Debugger Designed for Humans Is the Wrong Tool for an AI Agent