Prompting as a structured language

Defining the language of prompt engineering

Contention:

While the language in which we write prompts looks like normal language, it's actually something quite different.

The Latinophiles in the room might call it sui generis:

It's not (quite) the language that we use when we speak to someone. It's not quite pseudocode (I would contend, at least). Nor is it a language in the sense of a defined programming language like, say, Python.

This has sometimes got me wondering: what is it then?!

And this led me to prompt...

Have there been any attempts to define the type of language that prompt engineers use when prompting LLMs? Or more specifically: to define a standard syntax for instructing LLMs to do things like chain prompts or structure a response in a particular way?

And perhaps a little more imaginatively:

Imagine that the language in which prompts were written is were defined as a semi-structured language. Could prompts be highlighted with syntax highlighting much as programming languages are to visually highlight common artifacts in prompts like example usage, instructions, etc?

It probably exists?

I came up short running these prompts, but I have a very strong suspicion that it either already exists or is being worked on.

Update this note

If you know of any projects working on this, I would love to know about them.

Drop me a line and I'd be happy to update the info here!