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What is Prompt Management?

Helicone’s Prompt Management system allows you to store, version, and deploy your LLM prompts independently from your application code. Instead of hardcoding prompts in your codebase, you can manage them through the Helicone platform and pull them dynamically at runtime.

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Key Capabilities

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Version Control

Every prompt change creates a new version with:
  • Major and minor versioning (e.g., v1.0, v1.1, v2.0)
  • Commit messages to track what changed and why
  • Version history to compare and rollback changes
  • Environment tagging to deploy specific versions to dev, staging, or production

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Dynamic Loading

Load prompts at runtime using the @helicone/prompts SDK: 
import { HeliconePromptManager } from "@helicone/prompts";

const manager = new HeliconePromptManager({
  apiKey: process.env.HELICONE_API_KEY!,
});

const { body } = await manager.getPromptBody({
  prompt_id: "your-prompt-id",
  inputs: {
    name: "Alice",
    context: "product documentation",
  },
});

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Variable Substitution

Prompts support typed template variables using the {{hc:variable_name:type}} syntax: 
{
  "messages": [
    {
      "role": "system",
      "content": "You are a helpful assistant for {{hc:company:string}}."
    },
    {
      "role": "user",
      "content": "My age is {{hc:age:number}}. Can you help with {{hc:task:string}}?"
    }
  ]
}
Supported types:
  • string - Text values
  • number - Numeric values
  • boolean - True/false values

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Prompt Partials

Reuse content from other prompts using the {{hcp:prompt_id:index:environment}} syntax: 
{
  "messages": [
    {
      "role": "system",
      "content": "{{hcp:abc123:0:production}} Additional context here."
    }
  ]
}
This allows you to:
  • Share common instructions across multiple prompts
  • Update shared content in one place
  • Compose complex prompts from reusable components

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Benefits

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Deploy Without Code Changes

Update your prompts in production without:
  • Creating pull requests
  • Running CI/CD pipelines
  • Redeploying your application
  • Downtime

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Environment-Specific Prompts

Deploy different versions to different environments: 
// Development environment
const devPrompt = await manager.getPromptBody({
  prompt_id: "my-prompt",
  environment: "development",
});

// Production environment
const prodPrompt = await manager.getPromptBody({
  prompt_id: "my-prompt",
  environment: "production",
});

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Collaboration and Review

  • Team members can iterate on prompts in the Helicone UI
  • Track who made what changes and when
  • Compare versions side-by-side
  • Rollback to previous versions if needed

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Separation of Concerns

  • Developers manage application logic and infrastructure
  • Prompt engineers optimize prompts without touching code
  • Product teams can A/B test different prompt strategies

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Architecture

Prompts are stored in:
  1. PostgreSQL - Metadata (versions, environments, commit messages)
  2. S3 - Full prompt bodies (messages, tools, parameters)
When you request a prompt:
  1. The SDK fetches version metadata from Helicone API
  2. The prompt body is retrieved from S3 via signed URL
  3. Variables are substituted with your input values
  4. The compiled prompt is merged with any additional parameters

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Next Steps

Versioning

Learn how to create and manage prompt versions

Deployment

Deploy prompts to different environments

SDK Integration

Integrate prompts into your application

API Reference

Explore the Prompts API

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