To use your own argument against you, no, a minimal prompt does not look like this:

  $

It looks like this:

Please explain how this "uses my own argument against me", when my argument is that "minimal" prompt doesn't involve calling an external program to build the prompt? Both "$ " and "" can be built by the shell itself.

Heh oh my bad, I didn't realise you have the privilege of gatekeeping what "minimal" means ;)

I see one dictionary definition is "the least possible". Seems like the least possible prompt is no prompt at all, but it's really just a matter of opinion ;)