DSPy From First Principles 11: Few-Shot Optimization

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 10:50:00 +0100

Few-Shot Optimization

Chapter 10 established the compilation boundary. The optimizer may propose a candidate program. It may not promote itself.

Now we inspect the first mechanism: few-shot optimization.

The question is practical:

Can we improve the program by selecting or constructing better demonstrations rather than rewriting the program ourselves?

A demonstration is attached to a predictor, so its fields need to make sense for that predictor’s signature.

For a one-step rewrite predictor, a demonstration might look like: