Meta Prompting for AI Systems
Not on the map. Why?
Abstract (arXiv)
We introduce Meta Prompting (MP), a framework that emphasizes the formal structure of a task rather than content-specific worked examples. We give a categorical formalization in which a functor maps typed task transformations to typed prompt transformations. Functoriality encodes preservation of identities and composition, but it does not by itself guarantee semantic correctness. We extend MP to Recursive Meta Prompting (RMP), in which a proposer model generates candidate prompt edits, a validator enforces the edit schema, and an executor model uses the resulting prompt. We model the accumulation of valid edit scripts with the Writer monad and their application by a monoid action on prompts. This construction makes accumulated edits independent of parenthesization; it does not guarantee convergence or improved task accuracy. Empirically, a Qwen-72B base model guided by example-free meta-prompts attains 46.3% pass@1 on MATH and 83.5% accuracy on GSM8K. Separately, an MP-CR agent synthesizes a tool-executed Game of 24 solver; the original experiment reports 100% success on 1,362 instances, subject to exact re-verification from the corresponding input and per-instance outputs. The batch amortizes one LLM response across all puzzles, so its token accounting is not protocol-matched to per-instance few-shot or search-based methods.
Key facts. Cited by 16 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 49 of its 69 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 20 Nov 2023.
Builds on
49 of 69 references.
References · 49
- 2018BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understandingcited by 40,204
- 2020Language Models are Few-Shot Learnerscited by 32,199
- 2023GPT-4 Technical Reportcited by 18,132
- 2019Exploring the Limits of Transfer Learning with a Unified Text-to-Text Transformercited by 14,491
- 2023LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Modelscited by 13,958
- 2022Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large Language Modelscited by 12,302
- 2021Training Verifiers to Solve Math Word Problemscited by 9,743
- 2022Self-Consistency Improves Chain of Thought Reasoning in Language Modelscited by 5,601
- 2021Measuring Mathematical Problem Solving With the MATH Datasetcited by 5,203
- 2023Reflexion: Language Agents with Verbal Reinforcement Learningcited by 4,064
- 2023Let's Verify Step by Stepcited by 3,598
- 2023Qwen Technical Reportcited by 3,273
37 more
- 2023Tree of Thoughts: Deliberate Problem Solving with Large Language Modelscited by 3,155
- 2023Improving Factuality and Reasoning in Language Models through Multiagent Debatecited by 1,739
- 2022Least-to-Most Prompting Enables Complex Reasoning in Large Language Modelscited by 1,397
- 2022Solving Quantitative Reasoning Problems with Language Modelscited by 1,359
- 2023PaLM 2 Technical Reportcited by 1,154
- 2022Program of Thoughts Prompting: Disentangling Computation from Reasoning for Numerical Reasoning Taskscited by 1,057
- 2023Graph of Thoughts: Solving Elaborate Problems with Large Language Modelscited by 873
- 2023DSPy: Compiling Declarative Language Model Calls into Self-Improving Pipelinescited by 803
- 2023MetaMath: Bootstrap Your Own Mathematical Questions for Large Language Modelscited by 724
- 2022PAL: Program-aided Language Modelscited by 635
- 2023WizardMath: Empowering Mathematical Reasoning for Large Language Models via Reinforced Evol-Instructcited by 618
- 2021Prompt Programming for Large Language Models: Beyond the Few-Shot Paradigmcited by 599
- 2022Decomposed Prompting: A Modular Approach for Solving Complex Taskscited by 554
- 2023LeanDojo: Theorem Proving with Retrieval-Augmented Language Modelscited by 414
- 2022Complexity-Based Prompting for Multi-Step Reasoningcited by 387
- 2023Towards Revealing the Mystery behind Chain of Thought: A Theoretical Perspectivecited by 293
- 2023Faithful Chain-of-Thought Reasoningcited by 285
- 2022Draft, Sketch, and Prove: Guiding Formal Theorem Provers with Informal Proofscited by 278
- 2023ToRA: A Tool-Integrated Reasoning Agent for Mathematical Problem Solvingcited by 276
- 2021AI Chains: Transparent and Controllable Human-AI Interaction by Chaining Large Language Model Promptscited by 265
- 2022Making Large Language Models Better Reasoners with Step-Aware Verifiercited by 231
- 2023Large Language Model Guided Tree-of-Thoughtcited by 218
- 2019KagNet: Knowledge-Aware Graph Networks for Commonsense Reasoningcited by 216
- 2023Progressive-Hint Prompting Improves Reasoning in Large Language Modelscited by 147
- 2020Scalable Multi-Hop Relational Reasoning for Knowledge-Aware Question Answeringcited by 122
- 2023Cumulative Reasoning with Large Language Modelscited by 94
- 2023LLMs cannot find reasoning errors, but can correct them given the error locationcited by 85
- 2021When Can Models Learn From Explanations? A Formal Framework for Understanding the Roles of Explanation Datacited by 75
- 2019Cognitive Graph for Multi-Hop Reading Comprehension at Scalecited by 65
- 2018Knowledgeable Reader: Enhancing Cloze-Style Reading Comprehension with External Commonsense Knowledgecited by 48
- 2018Improving Natural Language Inference Using External Knowledge in the Science Questions Domaincited by 48
- 2018Commonsense for Generative Multi-Hop Question Answering Taskscited by 48
- 2022SeqZero: Few-shot Compositional Semantic Parsing with Sequential Prompts and Zero-shot Modelscited by 38
- 2021Refining Language Models with Compositional Explanationscited by 27
- 2022MetaPrompting: Learning to Learn Better Promptscited by 19
- 2018Exploiting Explicit Paths for Multi-hop Reading Comprehensioncited by 16
- 2020Multi-Step Inference for Reasoning Over Paragraphscited by 8
Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2024: 2; 2025: 9; 2026: 5.
16 papers.
Sort:
By area:
- 2024Visual Agents as Fast and Slow Thinkerscited by 53
- 2025Manipulating Multimodal Agents via Cross-Modal Prompt Injectioncited by 42
- 2025SciSciGPT: Advancing Human-AI Collaboration in the Science of Sciencecited by 26
- 2025RecGPT-V2 Technical Reportcited by 8
- 2025Tuning LLM-based Code Optimization via Meta-Prompting: An Industrial Perspectivecited by 7
- 2024Training and Evaluating Language Models with Template-based Data Generationcited by 6
- 2025Bayesian Network Structure Discovery Using Large Language Modelscited by 5
- 2026SYMPHONY: Synergistic Multi-agent Planning with Heterogeneous Language Model Assemblycited by 5
- 2025Question Answering under Temporal Conflict: Evaluating and Organizing Evolving Knowledge with LLMscited by 4
- 2025Evaluating Prompting Strategies and Large Language Models in Systematic Literature Review Screening: Relevance and Task-Stage Classificationcited by 3
- 2026From Historical Patches to Repair Plans: Outcome-Conditioned Reasoning for Repository-Level Program Repaircited by 2
- 2025Z-Scores: A Metric for Linguistically Assessing Disfluency Removalcited by 1
4 more
- 2026A Two-Stage LLM Framework for Accessible and Verified XAI Explanationscited by 1
- 2026PVDetector: Detecting Prompt Injection Attacks on Purpose-Specific LLM Agents through Policy-Violation Concept Analysiscited by 1
- 2025Monadic Context Engineeringcited by 0
- 2026Towards Efficient and Robust Linguistic Emotion Diagnosis for Mental Health via Multi-Agent Instruction Refinementcited by 0
- 2026PVDetector: Detecting Prompt Injection Attacks on Purpose-Specific LLM Agents through Policy-Violation Concept Analysis14 Jul 2026
- 2026A Two-Stage LLM Framework for Accessible and Verified XAI Explanations14 Apr 2026
- 2026From Historical Patches to Repair Plans: Outcome-Conditioned Reasoning for Repository-Level Program Repair30 Jan 2026
- 2026SYMPHONY: Synergistic Multi-agent Planning with Heterogeneous Language Model Assembly30 Jan 2026
- 2026Towards Efficient and Robust Linguistic Emotion Diagnosis for Mental Health via Multi-Agent Instruction Refinement20 Jan 2026
- 2025Monadic Context Engineering27 Dec 2025
- 2025RecGPT-V2 Technical Report16 Dec 2025
- 2025Bayesian Network Structure Discovery Using Large Language Models1 Nov 2025
- 2025Evaluating Prompting Strategies and Large Language Models in Systematic Literature Review Screening: Relevance and Task-Stage Classification17 Oct 2025
- 2025Z-Scores: A Metric for Linguistically Assessing Disfluency Removal24 Sep 2025
- 2025Tuning LLM-based Code Optimization via Meta-Prompting: An Industrial Perspective2 Aug 2025
- 2025Question Answering under Temporal Conflict: Evaluating and Organizing Evolving Knowledge with LLMs8 Jun 2025
4 more
- 2025Manipulating Multimodal Agents via Cross-Modal Prompt Injection19 Apr 2025
- 2025SciSciGPT: Advancing Human-AI Collaboration in the Science of Science7 Apr 2025
- 2024Training and Evaluating Language Models with Template-based Data Generation27 Nov 2024
- 2024Visual Agents as Fast and Slow Thinkers16 Aug 2024
- 2026SYMPHONY: Synergistic Multi-agent Planning with Heterogeneous Language Model Assemblycited by 5
- 2026PVDetector: Detecting Prompt Injection Attacks on Purpose-Specific LLM Agents through Policy-Violation Concept Analysiscited by 1
- 2026Towards Efficient and Robust Linguistic Emotion Diagnosis for Mental Health via Multi-Agent Instruction Refinementcited by 0
- 2026PVDetector: Detecting Prompt Injection Attacks on Purpose-Specific LLM Agents through Policy-Violation Concept Analysis14 Jul 2026
- 2026SYMPHONY: Synergistic Multi-agent Planning with Heterogeneous Language Model Assembly30 Jan 2026
- 2026Towards Efficient and Robust Linguistic Emotion Diagnosis for Mental Health via Multi-Agent Instruction Refinement20 Jan 2026
- 2025SciSciGPT: Advancing Human-AI Collaboration in the Science of Sciencecited by 26
- 2025RecGPT-V2 Technical Reportcited by 8
- 2025Tuning LLM-based Code Optimization via Meta-Prompting: An Industrial Perspectivecited by 7
- 2024Training and Evaluating Language Models with Template-based Data Generationcited by 6
- 2025Bayesian Network Structure Discovery Using Large Language Modelscited by 5
- 2025Question Answering under Temporal Conflict: Evaluating and Organizing Evolving Knowledge with LLMscited by 4
- 2025Evaluating Prompting Strategies and Large Language Models in Systematic Literature Review Screening: Relevance and Task-Stage Classificationcited by 3
- 2025Z-Scores: A Metric for Linguistically Assessing Disfluency Removalcited by 1
- 2026A Two-Stage LLM Framework for Accessible and Verified XAI Explanationscited by 1
- 2025Monadic Context Engineeringcited by 0
- 2026A Two-Stage LLM Framework for Accessible and Verified XAI Explanations14 Apr 2026
- 2025Monadic Context Engineering27 Dec 2025
- 2025RecGPT-V2 Technical Report16 Dec 2025
- 2025Bayesian Network Structure Discovery Using Large Language Models1 Nov 2025
- 2025Evaluating Prompting Strategies and Large Language Models in Systematic Literature Review Screening: Relevance and Task-Stage Classification17 Oct 2025
- 2025Z-Scores: A Metric for Linguistically Assessing Disfluency Removal24 Sep 2025
- 2025Tuning LLM-based Code Optimization via Meta-Prompting: An Industrial Perspective2 Aug 2025
- 2025Question Answering under Temporal Conflict: Evaluating and Organizing Evolving Knowledge with LLMs8 Jun 2025
- 2025SciSciGPT: Advancing Human-AI Collaboration in the Science of Science7 Apr 2025
- 2024Training and Evaluating Language Models with Template-based Data Generation27 Nov 2024