PRODUCTION SCENARIO
A data extraction pipeline processes international shipping manifests. Claude keeps missing subtle container ISO codes even though the instructions describe them in detail.
How should examples be added to the prompt?
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Answer: Add three to five diverse examples in <example> tags with input and output
The guidance is to include three to five examples, wrapped in <example> tags inside an <examples> block, and to make them relevant and diverse enough that Claude does not pick up an unintended pattern. One example plus prose gives a single demonstration of the case the pipeline is already failing. Twenty near-identical manifests teach the shape of that one variant and spend context doing it. And an example per ISO prefix inflates the prompt chasing coverage that a few diverse cases already generalize.