Before you adopt it.
Short, accurate answers. If yours isn't here, reach the team or open an issue on GitHub.
+ What is promptel?
promptel is declarative prompt engineering: a small DSL (and equivalent YAML) for LLM prompts, with typed params, technique blocks, and a provider abstraction over OpenAI, Anthropic, and Groq. It is a Node.js library and CLI, MIT licensed, published on npm as promptel.
+ How do the .prompt DSL and YAML forms relate?
They are two equivalent surfaces. The .prompt DSL is parsed by a Chevrotain grammar; the YAML is parsed by js-yaml. Both produce the same AST and execute identically. FormatConverter (promptToYaml / yamlToPrompt) converts losslessly in either direction.
+ Which providers are supported?
OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, and Groq, each via their official SDK. Select the provider at call time with executePrompt(src, params, { provider }). Switching providers changes a flag, not your templates.
+ What prompt techniques can I declare?
Chain-of-Thought, Few-Shot, Zero-Shot, Tree-of-Thoughts, ReAct, and Self-Consistency, all as first-class blocks inside body.technique. Each is a node in the AST, so reviewers can see which technique is in play.
+ What is the Harmony Protocol?
A harmony block declares reasoning effort and multi-channel responses — for example channels ["final", "analysis", "commentary"]. The channels are surfaced as structured fields on the result rather than parsed out of a single blob of text.
+ How are params handled?
Params are declared in a params block with a type, optionality, and an optional default. The executor binds supplied values against the declaration and refuses to run a prompt whose params do not bind, before any token is sent.
+ Where do API keys come from?
From the PROMPTEL_API_KEY environment variable or the provider-native env var. promptel does not store keys and has no hosted backend.
+ Can I use the CLI in CI?
Yes. The promptel CLI executes a prompt (-f file -p provider --params …) or converts between .prompt and YAML (--convert yaml). Write structured results to a file with -o and feed them into your eval or CI pipeline.
+ How is promptel different from Prompty or DSPy?
Prompty is a YAML-fronted prompt asset format, tooling-led and less opinionated about techniques. DSPy is a programming model for self-improving pipelines with a bigger, optimiser-led scope. promptel is a focused DSL for authoring and executing prompts with techniques as blocks and portable providers. See the comparison pages for detail.
+ Is it open source?
Yes, MIT licensed, built by Skelf Research. Source is on GitHub and the package is on npm.