# Versioning Prompts and Context Pipelines — Prompt & Context Engineering

Source: https://www.skillbyai.com/en/prompt-context-engineering/c-version

> Treat prompts as code with tests and history.

## Every change is a release

Small changes to wording, example selection, chunk count or ordering can shift quality in surprising ways. Store prompt templates and context settings in **version control**, give each version an ID, log that ID with every request, and run a **regression evaluation** before releasing a change. Keep the model name and version, retrieval settings and template version together, because a result is only reproducible with all of them. Roll out risky changes gradually and compare live metrics with the previous version.

## What to record per request

Enough to reproduce and compare.

```text
request_id:        r_8f12
template_version:  support-answer@v14
model:             <model id + version>
retrieval:         k=6, min_score=0.6, dedupe=jaccard@0.6
context_tokens:    5,812 (cached 3,940)
stop_reason:       end_turn
validation:        passed
latency_ms:        1,840
```

## Diff the rendered prompt

In code review, show the rendered prompt before and after a template change, not only the template diff.

**Quiz:** Why log the template version with each request?

- [ ] To hide changes from users
- [ ] To increase the context window
- [ ] Because models require it
- [x] So results can be reproduced and compared across prompt changes

*Answer:* So results can be reproduced and compared across prompt changes. Traceability makes prompt changes safe.