6 ms·

POML: Prompt Orchestration Markup Language

109 points by avestura 1y ago

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
liamkinne 1y ago
XML? how is this not just XML with a schema?
- epolanski 1y ago
  Maybe it's not fully XML compliant. Anyway quite an interesting project, XML's a better fit for "programmable" data.
  - gavinray 1y ago
    It has self-closing tags, which you can see in the repo screenshot, so you're correct.
    - actionfromafar 1y ago
      But why... standards are good, eveyone should have one, I guess.
- PeterStuer 1y ago
  XML, for those born after 1990, you could have well said COBOL or FORTRAN, something gramps used to mention.
- floatrock 1y ago
  Does XML allow you to define for-loops inside <bracketed> items then reference the loop variables inside {{template vars}}? https://youtu.be/b9WDcFsKixo?t=223 https://youtu.be/b9WDcFsKixo?t=223 I guess it doesn't prevent you from doing such things, but... well... there's some eyebrow-raising shoehorning in this one.
  - valenterry 1y ago
    Yes it does. Apache ant did that... many many years ago. Creating a new language that looks like XML but is not XML is... kind of unforgivable. I'd go as far and call it amateur-like. We already have good configuration languages (such as dhall-lang) and when more power is needed, then just use a real language and provide a DSL inside of it.
- tempodox 1y ago
  It's from Microsoft. They always cook up their own incompatible shit instead of using existing standards.
AbuAssar 1y ago
it is concerning that Microsoft didn't provide SDK for its own C#/.Net regarding this new technology, only nodejs and python, which says alot!
- pinoy420 1y ago
  [dead]
- marsven_422 1y ago
  [dead]
- rahkiin 1y ago
  It just says the current agent ecosystem is focused on python and javascript stacks?
- ajdude 1y ago
  Microsoft doesn't even use their own SDK for their apps anymore, it's all electron.
- valenterry 1y ago
  Yeah. I judge the maturity by that. If there's only a javascript/node and python sdk, that means I'll stay far away from it for the time being.
stitched2gethr 1y ago
I'll keep using markdown.
ulrischa 1y ago
There is already the .prompt.yaml format (https://docs.github.com/en/github-models/use-github-models/storing-prompts-in-github-repositories https://docs.github.com/en/github-models/use-github-models/s...) from github, which is also Microsoft. Would be great to see some standard evolving.
rco8786 1y ago
This is interesting but not sure why it needs to be a library
- airstrike 1y ago
  The video shows it embedding the content of a docx file Not sure why you'd use docx but...
  - hoppp 1y ago
    Because its from microsoft so its compatible with word
    - airstrike 1y ago
      Yes, I appreciate that fact, but why would I write a prompt in docx
      - mh- 1y ago
        It clearly (to me) shows that it's providing a docx for background knowledge, the way all of the existing providers allow you to upload a file as part of creating a new prompt. It's in a <document> tag, under a <hint> with a caption attribute that has a value "Background Knowledge". No one is suggesting you write a prompt in docx..
deadbabe 1y ago
With all these languages for writing better prompts, are we going to end up coming full circle?
- pseufaux 1y ago
  With greatly reduced reliability...
- OJFord 1y ago
  Our latest model is fully deterministic! The full list of functions you can call to compose your question is available in the docs here.
gregman1 1y ago
Idk, looks like IP squatting
aaronvg 1y ago
You may also want to check out BAML https://github.com/BoundaryML/baml https://github.com/BoundaryML/baml - a DSL for prompt templates that are literally treated like functions. the prompt.yaml format (which this project uses) suffers from the fact that it doesn't address the structured outputs problem. Writing schemas in yaml/xml is insanely painful. But BAML just feels like writing typescript types. I'm one of the developers!
tannhaeuser 1y ago
SGML is so back!
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
baggiponte 1y ago
How’s this different from xml?
ultmaster 1y ago
I'm the sole code contributor of POML, maybe except for Codex and cc. I think I've found where all that GitHub stars suddenly came from. :) I'm from a small group under Microsoft Research. POML originally came from a research idea that Prompt should have a view layer like the traditional MVC architecture in the frontend system. The view layer should take care of the data, the styles and rendering logic, so that the user no longer needs to care how some table needs to be rendered, how to present few-shot examples, how to reformat the whole prompt with another syntax (e.g., from markdown to XML). I have to admit that I spent so much time on making POML work well with VSCode, building all the auto completion, preview, hover stuff. The time is long enough that the codebase is almost becoming a monster for an individual developer to handle. The outside environment is also changing drastically. The rise of Agentic AI, tool calls, response format. The models today are no longer sensitive to small changes in prompt format as they used to. AI-aided programming can simply give you code to read in PDFs, Excels and render them in any style you want. With all that in mind, I used to feel hopeless about POML. Nevertheless, after several months of working on another projects, I recently noticed that the view layer can be more of just a view layer. With proper user interface (e.g., a VSCode live preview), it can deliver a very smooth experience in prompt debugging, especially in a multi-prompt agent workflow. I also noticed that the "orchestration" idea can go beyond a XML-like code. I'll share more details when I had a tutorial / screenshot to share. Going through this thread, I saw a lot of thoughts that once went through my mind. We love markdowns. We love template engines like jinja. We need those response formats. I'm thinking what is the missing piece here. I've spend so much time writing prompts and building agents in the past few months. What's my biggest pain points? I'm quite surprised that the news hit me first before I'm ready to hit the news. If you have tried POML, please send me feedbacks. I'll see what I can do; or maybe we end up not needing a prompt language at all.
- golly_ned 1y ago
  It strikes me as a massive anti-pattern to have one developer be the sole contributor of an open-source project sponsored by a $3T company. It doesn't speak well to its longevity or the strength of the sponsorship Microsoft's putting behind it in practice.
nine_k 1y ago
Does anybody find it mildly ironic that LLM prompts, which are intended to be plain informal text, accumulate more and more structure around them, including a markup language in question? This is not unlike the way the language of legal documents is highly formulaic, structured, and codified. When precise meaning is desirable, firmer structures tend to arise. With a bit more time, proper code languages may start to appear, to help tell LLMs exactly what we mean or want.
- dragonwriter 1y ago
  This markup language isn't structure for prompts for LLMs, it is structure for conventional programs that need to construct prompts for LLMs. Conventional programs using structured templates with deterministic rules to construct output is... not new. (Jinja templates have been widely used for communicating structure to assemble conversation history, tool calls, etc., into promots for open models for a while.)
  - creatonez 1y ago
    It is both. The structure does actually help LLMs. Interestingly, LLMs seem to respond well to the repetition of XML-like structure (that is, the presence of closing tags), even if it's just an ad-hoc constructed language with no real schema.
    - Terretta 1y ago
      Not sure if changed with GPT-5, but Claude was explicitly tuned to leverage XML-like tags, while GPT-3.5 and 4 seemed to prefer Markdown-like structure. https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/build-with-claude/prompt-engineering/use-xml-tags https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/build-with-claude/prompt-...
- beefnugs 1y ago
  This is "The Dream" vs whatever actually happened
leke 1y ago
Do you have to install poml via the node or python or is the vscode plugin enough?
LudwigNagasena 1y ago
<let name="objVar" type="object" value="{{ { key: 'value' } }}"/> <item for="item in ['apple', 'banana', 'cherry']">{{item}}</item> <p if="isVisible">This paragraph is visible.</p> This looks like JSX but worse. What's wrong with throwing a bit of imperative syntax into a DSL if you need imperativity? It seems unnecessary to put code into strings.
Involution 1y ago
this looks like a straight rip off of SignalWire’s Prompt Object Model (POM) (from q1-2 2025) https://developer.signalwire.com/ai/pom/technical-reference https://developer.signalwire.com/ai/pom/technical-reference
ruze 1y ago
Whatever happened to LMQL? https://lmql.ai/ https://lmql.ai/
brianjking 1y ago
Neat, but I'll probably stick with DSPy.

109 points by avestura 1y ago

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

liamkinne 1y ago

XML? how is this not just XML with a schema?

epolanski 1y ago
Maybe it's not fully XML compliant. Anyway quite an interesting project, XML's a better fit for "programmable" data.
- gavinray 1y ago
  It has self-closing tags, which you can see in the repo screenshot, so you're correct.
  - actionfromafar 1y ago
    But why... standards are good, eveyone should have one, I guess.
PeterStuer 1y ago
XML, for those born after 1990, you could have well said COBOL or FORTRAN, something gramps used to mention.
floatrock 1y ago
Does XML allow you to define for-loops inside <bracketed> items then reference the loop variables inside {{template vars}}? https://youtu.be/b9WDcFsKixo?t=223 https://youtu.be/b9WDcFsKixo?t=223 I guess it doesn't prevent you from doing such things, but... well... there's some eyebrow-raising shoehorning in this one.
- valenterry 1y ago
  Yes it does. Apache ant did that... many many years ago. Creating a new language that looks like XML but is not XML is... kind of unforgivable. I'd go as far and call it amateur-like. We already have good configuration languages (such as dhall-lang) and when more power is needed, then just use a real language and provide a DSL inside of it.
tempodox 1y ago
It's from Microsoft. They always cook up their own incompatible shit instead of using existing standards.

AbuAssar 1y ago

it is concerning that Microsoft didn't provide SDK for its own C#/.Net regarding this new technology, only nodejs and python, which says alot!

pinoy420 1y ago
[dead]
marsven_422 1y ago
[dead]
rahkiin 1y ago
It just says the current agent ecosystem is focused on python and javascript stacks?
ajdude 1y ago
Microsoft doesn't even use their own SDK for their apps anymore, it's all electron.
valenterry 1y ago
Yeah. I judge the maturity by that. If there's only a javascript/node and python sdk, that means I'll stay far away from it for the time being.

stitched2gethr 1y ago

I'll keep using markdown.

ulrischa 1y ago

There is already the .prompt.yaml format (https://docs.github.com/en/github-models/use-github-models/storing-prompts-in-github-repositories https://docs.github.com/en/github-models/use-github-models/s...) from github, which is also Microsoft. Would be great to see some standard evolving.

rco8786 1y ago

This is interesting but not sure why it needs to be a library

airstrike 1y ago
The video shows it embedding the content of a docx file Not sure why you'd use docx but...
- hoppp 1y ago
  Because its from microsoft so its compatible with word
  - airstrike 1y ago
    Yes, I appreciate that fact, but why would I write a prompt in docx
    - mh- 1y ago
      It clearly (to me) shows that it's providing a docx for background knowledge, the way all of the existing providers allow you to upload a file as part of creating a new prompt. It's in a <document> tag, under a <hint> with a caption attribute that has a value "Background Knowledge". No one is suggesting you write a prompt in docx..

deadbabe 1y ago

With all these languages for writing better prompts, are we going to end up coming full circle?

pseufaux 1y ago
With greatly reduced reliability...
OJFord 1y ago
Our latest model is fully deterministic! The full list of functions you can call to compose your question is available in the docs here.

gregman1 1y ago

Idk, looks like IP squatting

aaronvg 1y ago

You may also want to check out BAML https://github.com/BoundaryML/baml https://github.com/BoundaryML/baml - a DSL for prompt templates that are literally treated like functions. the prompt.yaml format (which this project uses) suffers from the fact that it doesn't address the structured outputs problem. Writing schemas in yaml/xml is insanely painful. But BAML just feels like writing typescript types. I'm one of the developers!

tannhaeuser 1y ago

SGML is so back!

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

baggiponte 1y ago

How’s this different from xml?

ultmaster 1y ago

I'm the sole code contributor of POML, maybe except for Codex and cc. I think I've found where all that GitHub stars suddenly came from. :) I'm from a small group under Microsoft Research. POML originally came from a research idea that Prompt should have a view layer like the traditional MVC architecture in the frontend system. The view layer should take care of the data, the styles and rendering logic, so that the user no longer needs to care how some table needs to be rendered, how to present few-shot examples, how to reformat the whole prompt with another syntax (e.g., from markdown to XML). I have to admit that I spent so much time on making POML work well with VSCode, building all the auto completion, preview, hover stuff. The time is long enough that the codebase is almost becoming a monster for an individual developer to handle. The outside environment is also changing drastically. The rise of Agentic AI, tool calls, response format. The models today are no longer sensitive to small changes in prompt format as they used to. AI-aided programming can simply give you code to read in PDFs, Excels and render them in any style you want. With all that in mind, I used to feel hopeless about POML. Nevertheless, after several months of working on another projects, I recently noticed that the view layer can be more of just a view layer. With proper user interface (e.g., a VSCode live preview), it can deliver a very smooth experience in prompt debugging, especially in a multi-prompt agent workflow. I also noticed that the "orchestration" idea can go beyond a XML-like code. I'll share more details when I had a tutorial / screenshot to share. Going through this thread, I saw a lot of thoughts that once went through my mind. We love markdowns. We love template engines like jinja. We need those response formats. I'm thinking what is the missing piece here. I've spend so much time writing prompts and building agents in the past few months. What's my biggest pain points? I'm quite surprised that the news hit me first before I'm ready to hit the news. If you have tried POML, please send me feedbacks. I'll see what I can do; or maybe we end up not needing a prompt language at all.

golly_ned 1y ago
It strikes me as a massive anti-pattern to have one developer be the sole contributor of an open-source project sponsored by a $3T company. It doesn't speak well to its longevity or the strength of the sponsorship Microsoft's putting behind it in practice.

nine_k 1y ago

Does anybody find it mildly ironic that LLM prompts, which are intended to be plain informal text, accumulate more and more structure around them, including a markup language in question? This is not unlike the way the language of legal documents is highly formulaic, structured, and codified. When precise meaning is desirable, firmer structures tend to arise. With a bit more time, proper code languages may start to appear, to help tell LLMs exactly what we mean or want.

dragonwriter 1y ago
This markup language isn't structure for prompts for LLMs, it is structure for conventional programs that need to construct prompts for LLMs. Conventional programs using structured templates with deterministic rules to construct output is... not new. (Jinja templates have been widely used for communicating structure to assemble conversation history, tool calls, etc., into promots for open models for a while.)
- creatonez 1y ago
  It is both. The structure does actually help LLMs. Interestingly, LLMs seem to respond well to the repetition of XML-like structure (that is, the presence of closing tags), even if it's just an ad-hoc constructed language with no real schema.
  - Terretta 1y ago
    Not sure if changed with GPT-5, but Claude was explicitly tuned to leverage XML-like tags, while GPT-3.5 and 4 seemed to prefer Markdown-like structure. https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/build-with-claude/prompt-engineering/use-xml-tags https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/build-with-claude/prompt-...
beefnugs 1y ago
This is "The Dream" vs whatever actually happened

leke 1y ago

Do you have to install poml via the node or python or is the vscode plugin enough?

LudwigNagasena 1y ago

<let name="objVar" type="object" value="{{ { key: 'value' } }}"/> <item for="item in ['apple', 'banana', 'cherry']">{{item}}</item> <p if="isVisible">This paragraph is visible.</p> This looks like JSX but worse. What's wrong with throwing a bit of imperative syntax into a DSL if you need imperativity? It seems unnecessary to put code into strings.

Involution 1y ago

this looks like a straight rip off of SignalWire’s Prompt Object Model (POM) (from q1-2 2025) https://developer.signalwire.com/ai/pom/technical-reference https://developer.signalwire.com/ai/pom/technical-reference

ruze 1y ago

Whatever happened to LMQL? https://lmql.ai/ https://lmql.ai/

brianjking 1y ago

Neat, but I'll probably stick with DSPy.