How to prompt Perplexity Sonar

Perplexity Sonar is a search-grounded answer model. Every Sonar prompt should include a citation policy: cite sources for non-obvious claims, report conflicting sources, say when something can’t be verified, and never invent URLs, titles or quotes. Scope the question by date, region or version, and ask for findings and sources as separate sections.

The prompt structure

Task:
Compare Postgres logical replication and Debezium for streaming
changes into Kafka.

Context:
Postgres 16 on AWS RDS. Team of three, no dedicated data engineer.
Timeframe: sources from 2025 onward.

Constraints:
- Compare only on: setup effort, operational overhead, schema changes.
- Cite a source for every non-obvious claim.
- If sources conflict, show both positions.
- If a claim can't be supported, say so. Never invent links.

Output format:
Comparison table, then "Sources" as a numbered list.

The citation policy is not optional

Ask a search model for “sources” without forbidding fabrication, and you may get neat-looking URLs that don’t exist. Spell out the rules:

• Cite sources for figures, dates, product claims and quotes.
• If sources disagree, report both instead of picking one silently.
• If nothing supports a claim, say it couldn’t be verified.
• Never invent paper titles, DOIs, news links or social posts.

Don’t put example URLs or dummy citations in the prompt. They become templates for invented ones.

Separate facts from interpretation

Ask for Findings (or Answer), then Sources. If you want analysis, request a clearly labelled Interpretation section, so readers can tell verified information from opinion.

Scope the search

Underspecified questions pull in generic web filler. Add a scope sentence: date range, region, product version, or the specific criteria to compare. Don’t request an open-ended literature review unless that’s actually the goal.

Keep your beliefs out of the facts

If you already suspect an answer, label it as a hypothesis in Context (“our assumption is…”) rather than stating it as fact. Sonar should test it, not repeat it back.

Don’t ask it to browse a specific URL unless you give that URL.

Success criteria for research

For research that matters, check citations, not writing flair: every statistic maps to a source, and conflicts between sources are named.

Why Sonar prompts go wrong

• Chat-style questions that never mention sources.
• Asking for links without forbidding invented ones.
• Personal opinions in Context presented as verified facts.
• Example bibliographies the model copies.
• No date or version scope, so results are generic or stale.