Getting Started

This guide walks you through installing pupt, writing your first prompt, and running it. No programming experience required.

Install Pupt

Install the pupt command-line tool:

npm install -g pupt

Then set it up:

pt init

This walks you through a few questions about where to store your prompts and which AI tool you use. You only need to do this once.

Don't have npm?

npm comes with Node.js. Download the latest version and install it -- npm is included automatically.

Write Your First Prompt

Create a file called greeting.prompt in your prompts directory:

<Prompt name="greeting">
  <Role>You are a friendly assistant who speaks in a warm, welcoming tone.</Role>
  <Task>Greet the user and ask how you can help them today.</Task>
</Prompt>

Each tag has a clear job. <Prompt> wraps your entire prompt and gives it a name. <Role> tells the AI who it should be. <Task> tells the AI what to do. You can explore every available tag in the Tags Overview.

Run It

pt

Select your greeting prompt from the list. Pupt turns your tags into a well-formatted prompt and sends it to your AI tool.

Here's what the AI actually receives:

<role>
You are a friendly assistant who speaks in a warm, welcoming tone.
</role>
<task>
Greet the user and ask how you can help them today.
</task>
<format>
Output format: markdown
</format>
<constraints>
- Keep responses concise and focused
- Be accurate and factual
- Acknowledge uncertainty when unsure
</constraints>

Notice that pupt added <format> and <constraints> sections automatically. You only wrote a role and a task, but pupt filled in sensible defaults for the sections you left out. You get a well-structured prompt from just a few lines.

Add Rules

Use <Constraint> to set rules the AI should follow. The type property controls how strongly the rule is enforced:

<Prompt name="greeting">
  <Role>You are a friendly assistant who speaks in a warm, welcoming tone.</Role>
  <Task>Greet the user and ask how you can help them today.</Task>
  <Constraint type="must">Keep the greeting under 50 words.</Constraint>
</Prompt>

When you provide your own <Constraint> tags, pupt skips the default constraints and uses yours instead. Learn more about constraints and other structural tags in Writing Your First Prompt.

Try a Preset

Instead of writing your own role description, try a preset -- a ready-made configuration based on prompt engineering best practices:

<Prompt name="code-review">
  <Role preset="engineer" />
  <Task>Review the following code for bugs and improvements.</Task>
  <Constraint type="must">Explain each issue clearly.</Constraint>
  <Format type="markdown" />
</Prompt>

The <Role preset="engineer" /> tag expands into a detailed software engineer persona with relevant expertise and traits. There are presets for many roles -- writer, analyst, teacher, designer, and more.

Collect Input

Prompts can ask for information when they run. Add an Ask tag to collect input:

<Prompt name="greeting">
  <Role>You are a friendly assistant.</Role>
  <Task>
    Greet the user named <Ask.Text name="userName" label="User's name" />
    warmly and ask how you can help them today.
  </Task>
</Prompt>

When you run this prompt, pupt asks for the user's name and inserts it into the right place. There are many input types -- text, numbers, choices, file paths, and more. See Variables & Inputs.

Disable Defaults

If you want full control over your prompt with no auto-generated sections, use bare:

<Prompt name="custom" bare>
  <Role>You are a helpful assistant.</Role>
  <Task>Help the user.</Task>
</Prompt>

This outputs only what you write -- no extra format or constraint sections.

What to Learn Next

You now know the basics: write tags, run prompts, use presets. Here's where to go deeper:

• Writing Your First Prompt -- Learn all the structural tags and how to combine them
• Variables & Inputs -- Collect user input and use it throughout your prompt
• Tags Overview -- Browse every tag available in pupt
• Presets -- See all the built-in role, task, and constraint presets