Craft

Leveling up your prompt writing

• Break it up. Several related tasks → separate prompts, chained.
• Give constraints. Word counts, output formats, number of options. Constraints are context.
• Assign a role. “You are a hostile security auditor…” changes the output more than any other single word choice.
• Ask for its questions. “Before answering, ask me the 3 questions that would most improve your output.”
• Consider tone per audience. Physician ≠ attorney ≠ MSP engineer ≠ investor. Say which.
• Say it another way. If the output misses, rephrase — don’t just repeat louder.
• In Claude Code, trust CLAUDE.md. Don’t re-paste architecture into every prompt; it’s already loaded. Reference sections instead: “per ARCHITECTURE.md §5.”

Note

Before putting any output into action, review it for clarity, relevance, and accuracy. Claude helps; the final output — and the merge — is yours.