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How to Manage and Scale Your AI Prompts in Node with ai-prompt-organizer

September 24, 2023

As software uses more and more prompt-based AI tools like OpenAI, and as those tools are able to handle bigger and more complex prompts, codebases will inevitably get bloated with text. But if we separate our prompts from our code, we can keep our codebases clean, organized, scalable and overall easier to manage.

I created ai-prompt-organizer to help me manage my own prompts and turned it into a public npm package. Hopefully it helps others be more productive when it comes to prompt-based work.

Check out ai-prompt-organizer here.

This tutorial will show you how to leverage ai-prompt-organizer in your Node projects, step-by-step.

1. Init an example Node project (optional)
2. Set up ai-prompt-organizer
3. Build out your prompt library
  a. Nested objects
  b. Named exports
  c. Default export a string
  d. Nested folders
4. Use variables in your prompts
5. Use any prompt inside of another prompt

Init an example Node project (optional)

npm init

Create an example.js file.

touch example.js

In package.json add a script to run our little example program.

/* package.json */

"start": "node example.js"

In example.js, add a console.log to make sure it runs.

/* example.js */

console.log("Hello World!");

Run the program. You can run this any time you need to check on later parts of the tutorial.

npm run start

Make sure you see “Hello World!” in your terminal output.

Set up ai-prompt-organizer

Install ai-prompt-organizer

npm install ai-prompt-organizer

Create a prompts directory. This is where your prompt library will live.

mkdir prompts

The simplest way to start your prompt library is with an index.cjs file.

touch prompts/index.cjs

In your new file, default export an object.

/* /prompts/index.cjs */

module.exports = {};

Create your first prompt by adding a property to the object.

/* /prompts/index.cjs */

module.exports = {
  firstPrompt: "This is my first prompt!",
};

Now go to example.js, import ai-prompt-organizer and use the prompt.

/* example.js */

const PromptOrganizer = require("ai-prompt-organizer");

const prompt = PromptOrganizer.get("firstPrompt");

console.log(prompt);
// This is my first prompt!

Build out your prompt library

You can organize your prompt library however you want. The structure of your prompt library (nesting, folder names, file names, etc.) determines how you access your prompts (via nested dot notation).

Be sure to use .cjs file extensions!

Nested objects

/* /prompts/index.cjs */

module.exports = {
  level0: {
    level1: {
      level2: {
        nestedPrompt: "This is a nested prompt!",
      },
    },
  },
};
const prompt = PromptOrganizer.get("level0.level1.level2.nestedPrompt");
console.log(prompt);
// This is a nested prompt!

Named exports

If you don’t like dealing with objects, then named exports could be the move.

touch prompts/namedExports.cjs
/* /prompts/namedExports.js */

module.exports.namedExportPrompt = "This is a named export prompt!";
/* example.js */

const prompt = PromptOrganizer.get("namedExports.namedExportPrompt");

console.log(prompt);
// This is a named export prompt!

Default export a string

This option is great for super long prompts.

touch prompts/superLongPrompt.cjs
/* /prompts/superLongPrompt.cjs */

module.exports = `This is a super long prompt!`;
/* example.js */

const prompt = PromptOrganizer.get("superLongPrompt");

console.log(prompt);
// This is a super long prompt!

Nested folders

mkdir prompts/folderA
mkdir prompts/folderA/folderB
mkdir prompts/folderA/folderB/folderC
touch prompts/folderA/folderB/folderC/nestedFile.cjs
/* /prompts/folderA/folderB/folderC/nestedFile.cjs */

module.exports = {
  promptInNestedFile: "This is a prompt in a nested file!",
};
/* example.js */

const prompt = PromptOrganizer.get(
  "folderA.folderB.folderC.nestedFile.promptInNestedFile"
);

console.log(prompt);
// This is a super long prompt!

Use variables in your prompts

Sometimes we need to inject dynamic data into our prompts, which is easy with ai-prompt-organizer inputs.

/* example.js */

const inputs = { currentTimestamp: Date.now() };

// same concept as PromptOrganizer.get("promptThatTakesCurrentTs", inputs)
const prompt = PromptOrganizer.use(
  "The current time is {{currentTimestamp}}",
  inputs
);

console.log(prompt);
// The current time is 1695519417079

NOTE: PromptOrganizer.use() is just an easy way to use a prompt directly vs. grabbing it from the library. You can utilize inputs in the same way with PromptOrganizer.get() and use the bracket notation throughout your library prompts.

Use any prompt inside of another prompt

All you have to do is reference the prompt in double brackets, using dot notation like you would in PromptOrganizer.get().

Beware of circular dependencies!

/* /prompts/index.cjs */

module.exports = {
  start: "This is the",
  middle: "middle of the",
  end: "sentence.",
  full: "Here is a full sentence: {{start}} {{middle}} {{end}}",
};
/* example.js */

const prompt = PromptOrganizer.get("full");

console.log(prompt);
// Here is a full sentence: This is the middle of the sentence.

And that’s it!

Example Repo: https://github.com/ryanjyost/ai-prompt-organizer-tutorial
NPM: https://www.npmjs.com/package/ai-prompt-organizer
GitHub: https://github.com/ryanjyost/ai-prompt-organizer

Hi, I'm Ryan. I live in Denver and work remotely as a JavaScript/React/Node Developer. I'm always having fun building side projects and sometimes write JavaScript-related tutorials that help folks build things, too.