Search papers, labs, and topics across Lattice.
This paper outlines a structured research agenda for integrating prompt engineering into software engineering (SE) practices, highlighting the need for systematic evaluation and governance of prompts used in various SE activities. Through community discussions at the PROMPT-SE workshop, key challenges and future directions were identified, leading to the synthesis of five critical areas for development: standardization of prompt artifacts, evaluation and benchmarking, lifecycle integration, human-AI collaboration, and governance. The findings emphasize the importance of transitioning from informal prompting practices to a more structured approach that enhances maintainability and traceability in software development.
Transitioning prompt engineering from ad hoc practices to a systematic framework could revolutionize how software engineering integrates AI.
Prompt engineering is increasingly used across Software Engineering (SE) activities, including requirements analysis, coding, testing, documentation, repository analysis, and planning. Yet prompts and related instruction artifacts are often created and evolved through task-specific and informal practices, with limited support for their systematic evaluation, management, traceability, and governance. To examine how SE can contribute to the maturation of these practices, we organized a structured community discussion at the First International Workshop on Empirical Prompt Engineering for Software Engineering (PROMPT-SE), co-located with EASE 2026. Participants discussed current prompting practices, challenges to their adoption and evaluation, and future directions for integrating prompt engineering into software development. We synthesized these discussions into five areas: prompt artifacts and standardization; evaluation and benchmarking; lifecycle integration; human-AI collaboration and skills; and governance, privacy, and technical debt. Based on these areas, we outline a research agenda to move prompt engineering from predominantly ad hoc interactions toward more systematic, maintainable, evaluable, traceable, and governable SE practices.
