Templatize a prompt
Templatize a prompt by indentifying and extracting variables
The prompt tools APIs are in a closed research preview. Request to join the closed research preview.
Before you begin
The prompt tools are a set of APIs to generate and improve prompts. Unlike our other APIs, this is an experimental API: you’ll need to request access, and it doesn’t have the same level of commitment to long-term support as other APIs.
These APIs are similar to what’s available in the Anthropic Workbench, and are intented for use by other prompt engineering platforms and playgrounds.
Getting started with the prompt improver
To use the prompt generation API, you’ll need to:
- Have joined the closed research preview for the prompt tools APIs
- Use the API directly, rather than the SDK
- Add the beta header
prompt-tools-2025-04-02
This API is not available in the SDK
Templatize a prompt
Headers
Optional header to specify the beta version(s) you want to use.
To use multiple betas, use a comma separated list like beta1,beta2 or specify the header multiple times for each beta.
Body
The prompt to templatize, structured as a list of message objects.
Each message in the messages array must:
- Contain only text-only content blocks
- Not include tool calls, images, or prompt caching blocks
Example of a simple text prompt:
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": [
{
"type": "text",
"text": "Translate hello to German"
}
]
}
]
Note that only contiguous user messages with text content are allowed. Assistant prefill is permitted, but other content types will cause validation errors.
The existing system prompt to templatize.
{
"system": "You are a professional English to German translator",
[...]
}
Note that this differs from the Messages API; it is strictly a string.
Response
The templatized prompt with variable placeholders.
The response includes the input messages with specific values replaced by variable placeholders. These messages maintain the original message structure but contain uppercase variable names in place of concrete values.
For example, an input message content like "Translate hello to German" would be transformed to "Translate {{WORD_TO_TRANSLATE}} to {{TARGET_LANGUAGE}}".
{
"messages": [
{
"role": "user",
"content": [
{
"type": "text",
"text": "Translate {{WORD_TO_TRANSLATE}} to {{TARGET_LANGUAGE}}"
}
]
}
]
}
The input system prompt with variables identified and replaced.
If no system prompt was provided in the original request, this field will be an empty string.
Usage information
A mapping of template variable names to their original values, as extracted from the input prompt during templatization. Each key represents a variable name identified in the templatized prompt, and each value contains the corresponding content from the original prompt that was replaced by that variable.
Example:
"variable_values": {
"WORD_TO_TRANSLATE": "hello",
"TARGET_LANGUAGE": "German"
}
In this example response, the original prompt – Translate hello to German – was templatized to Translate WORD_TO_TRANSLATE to TARGET_LANGUAGE, with the variable values extracted as shown.
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