Gpt5 Family Prompting

# GPT-5 Family Prompting Guide

Covers GPT-5, GPT-5.1, and GPT-5.2. Based on official OpenAI Cookbook guides and production patterns.

Sources:
- [GPT-5 Prompting Guide](https://cookbook.openai.com/examples/gpt-5/gpt-5_prompting_guide)
- [GPT-5.1 Prompting Guide](https://cookbook.openai.com/examples/gpt-5/gpt-5-1_prompting_guide)
- [GPT-5.2 Prompting Guide](https://cookbook.openai.com/examples/gpt-5/gpt-5-2_prompting_guide)

## Model Comparison

| Aspect | GPT-5 | GPT-5.1 | GPT-5.2 |
|--------|-------|---------|---------|
| Default reasoning_effort | `medium` | `medium` | `none` |
| Reasoning levels | low/medium/high + `minimal` | low/medium/high + `none` | none/minimal/low/medium/high/`xhigh` |
| Key strength | Agentic eagerness control | Calibrated token consumption | Enterprise accuracy & instruction following |
| Verbosity | Steerable | Can be excessively concise | Concise by default, prompt-sensitive |
| Tool calling | Improved vs GPT-4 | Named tools (apply_patch, shell) | Best structured reasoning & grounding |
| API | Responses API + Chat Completions | Responses API (preferred) | Responses API (preferred) |

## Reasoning Effort Parameter

Controls thinking depth before the final answer.