AI engineering glossary · Prompt context engineering
What is scratchpad?
Scratchpad: A designated area of the model's output where it writes working notes and intermediate steps before the final answer. Keeping the notes separate lets the application hide or ignore the messy reasoning while keeping its accuracy benefit.
Scratchpad: an example
The prompt says 'Think inside <scratchpad> tags, then give the final answer inside <answer> tags.' Only the answer is shown to the user.
Related terms
More Prompt context engineering terms
- Seed parameter
- Self-ask
- Self-consistency
- Self-refine
- Skeleton-of-Thought
- Sliding window history
- Stateless API
- Step-back prompting
Where you learn it
Scratchpad is part of the AI Engineering Program, which teaches it with notes, a hands-on lab and an exam. The first lesson is free.