PromptVault
CodingProIntermediate

Read query plans by predicting work, not cost numbers

For engineers practicing cardinality and access-path reasoning from a real execution plan.

Works with
  • Cursor
  • GitHub Copilot
  • Ollama
  • DeepSeek
The prompt155 words · 3 blanks

Teach execution-plan reasoning from [query_plan] for [database_engine] through exactly [drill_count] drills in…

The full prompt is in the app

Included with PromptVault Pro. Fill in the blanks there, then copy it into Cursor.

What you fill in

  • Execution plan[query_plan]ExampleEXPLAIN ANALYZE output for a multi-join query
  • Plan dialect[database_engine]ExamplePostgreSQL
  • Number of drills[drill_count]Example4

How to use it

  1. 1Open it in PromptVault. Find it in Coding, or search for “Read query plans by predicting work, not cost numbers”.
  2. 2Fill in the 3 blanks. execution plan, plan dialect and number of drills — the only things the prompt cannot know.
  3. 3Copy and paste it into Cursor. It also works with GitHub Copilot, Ollama and DeepSeek.

About this prompt

“Read query plans by predicting work, not cost numbers” is a intermediate coding prompt. For engineers practicing cardinality and access-path reasoning from a real execution plan. It is 155 words long and written to get a usable answer on the first message, in Cursor, GitHub Copilot and Ollama or any other chat assistant. Good for: sql, explainer, deep dive, performance and step by step. Like every prompt in PromptVault, it was written and edited in-house, and it works offline once the app is installed.

More coding prompts

All 120 in Coding