How do you version prompts and why does it matter as much as model versioning?

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Answer

$Treat a prompt as code: it lives in the repository, changes through review, and every deployed version has an identifier logged with each request.$
$It matters because a prompt edit changes behaviour as much as a retrained model, and a prompt stored in a database and edited by hand produces regressions nobody can trace or revert.$
$Pin the model version alongside it, since the same prompt on a new model version is a different system, and providers update models behind stable aliases.$
$Attach the evaluation results for that prompt version, so promotion is gated on a measured comparison rather than someone's impression.$
$And keep the retrieval configuration in the same versioned unit, because chunking and top-k changes have the same effect as prompt changes.$

Check yourself — multiple choice

Prompts are configuration, not code
Version prompts in the repository with reviews and a logged identifier per request, pinned to a model version and retrieval config, with evaluation results gating promotion
Only the model needs versioning
Store prompts in a database and edit them live

A prompt change alters behaviour like a retrain, so it needs the same versioning, logging and gating.

#llmops#versioning#reproducibility

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