Core Concepts

Before diving into the tools, it helps to understand the key concepts that make Promptodex work.

Prompts

A prompt is a text template stored on Promptodex. Every prompt has:

• A slug — a unique identifier like summarize or tweet-thread
• Content — the actual prompt text, optionally with variables
• Versions — a history of revisions
• Visibility — public or private

Example prompt content:

Summarize the following article about {{topic}} in {{language:english}}:

{{content}}

Variables

Variables make prompts dynamic and reusable. They use double curly brace syntax:

{{variableName}}

You can set default values with a colon:

{{language:english}}

When a prompt is rendered, variables are replaced with the values you provide. Missing variables without defaults become empty strings.

Learn more in Writing Prompts → Variables.

Versions

Every time a prompt is edited, a new version is created. Versions are numbered sequentially (1, 2, 3, ...).

• Latest — by default, you always get the latest version
• Pinned — use @version syntax to lock to a specific version: summarize@2

This means you can iterate on prompts without breaking existing users.

Slugs

Prompts are identified by slugs — unique, URL-friendly names:

summarize
tweet-thread
translate

Slugs make prompts easy to reference from the CLI, SDK, or the web.

Public vs. Private Prompts

• Public prompts are visible to everyone. They can be forked, bookmarked, and used by anyone.
• Private prompts require an API key to access. Use them for proprietary or sensitive prompt content.

# Public — anyone can run this
pod summarize

# Private — requires authentication
pod my-private-prompt  # needs pod login or API key

Forking

Any public prompt can be forked — creating your own copy that you can modify independently. Attribution is automatic, and you can continue to pull in improvements from the original.

Collections

A collection is a curated group of prompts — like a playlist. Each item in a collection can be pinned to a specific version or left unpinned to always track the latest. Collections can be public (discoverable on your profile) or private.

Use them to organize prompts by workflow, share a curated set with a team, or lock a stable bundle for production.

Learn more in Collections.

Skills

A skill is a prompt that has been fetched, rendered with your variables, and written to a local file (skills/<slug>.md). Skills are version-locked, committable to git, and readable without a network call.

pod skill install compiles a single prompt; pod collection skill install compiles every prompt in a collection.

Learn more in Skills.

Model Recommendations

Prompt authors can recommend which AI model works best for their prompt (e.g., GPT-4.1, Claude Sonnet 4). The CLI respects these recommendations by default, but you can always override with --model.

The Registry

The Promptodex registry is the central hub where all prompts live. It's accessed by:

• The website for browsing and editing
• The CLI for running prompts from your terminal
• The SDK for loading prompts in code

Next Steps

• Quick Start — Install the tools and run your first prompt
• Writing Prompts — Learn the prompt syntax in detail