The six things a working prompt contains

A checklist, not a template

Templates from the internet mostly do not transfer, because they encode somebody else’s task. What does transfer is a list of the slots a prompt has, so you can notice which one you left empty. There are six.

1. The task. A verb, an object, and a finished state. Rewrite the opening paragraph so a reader knows in one line whether the deadline applies to them. Not “improve”, not “review”, not “have a look at”.

2. The context. The material itself, plus the background that changes what a good answer is. The document pasted in full. Who the reader is. The budget. The constraint that makes this hard. This is the biggest slot and the most often skipped, and the next module is entirely about it.

3. The examples. Two to five demonstrations, when the rule is easier to show than to state. Optional, and expensive in space, so use them where prose is weak: category boundaries, house tone, layouts you cannot name.

4. The constraints. What must be true of the answer. Under 150 words. In Portuguese. No mention of price. Only using facts from the pasted document. Keep these few and checkable: you learned in the last lesson that a long list gets quietly trimmed.

5. The output shape. The container the answer arrives in, and what to leave out. A table with these five columns. A WhatsApp message under 300 characters. JSON with these keys. No preamble, no closing summary.

6. The escape hatch. What to do when the task cannot be done as stated. If the contract does not say, write “not stated” rather than inferring. If none of the three candidates qualifies, say none. If you need a fact I have not given you, ask me instead of assuming.

Six slots. Most prompts that disappoint have filled one and a half.

Watching a prompt get built

Here is a real request in its first, natural form:

Help me write a message to my landlord about the leak.

Now the slots, one at a time.

Task: write a message asking for a specific action by a specific date. Context: the leak has been reported twice, on 3 and 19 August, both times by WhatsApp; the ceiling in the back bedroom is now stained; the tenancy is a rolling monthly one in Nairobi; the landlord is not hostile but is slow. Constraints: firm but not threatening: this relationship has to last; no legal threats yet; under 150 words; English. Shape: a WhatsApp message I can send as is, no subject line, no explanation to me before or after it. Escape hatch: if you think a legal reference would strengthen it, put it in a separate line below the message rather than inside it. Examples: not needed here.

Put together:

Write a WhatsApp message to my landlord in Nairobi about a leak in the back bedroom ceiling. I reported it on 3 and 19 August, both by WhatsApp, and nothing happened. The ceiling is now stained. I want a plumber to visit within seven days. Tone: firm, not threatening: I am on a rolling monthly tenancy and I need this relationship to work. Under 150 words. No legal threats. Give me only the message, ready to send, with no preamble. If you think a reference to the tenancy law would strengthen it, put it on a separate line below the message so I can decide separately.

That took ninety seconds. It will not need three rounds of correction, which is where the ninety seconds comes back.

The order the slots go in

Roughly: task first, then context, then examples, then constraints and shape, then the escape hatch. Two adjustments matter.

When the pasted material is long (more than a page or so) state the task before the material and repeat the key instruction after it. A model asked to do something at the end of six thousand words has read the instruction once, a long way back. Repeating a single line costs almost nothing and noticeably improves compliance.

And mark where your material starts and stops, so the instruction cannot be read as part of the document. A line of dashes, or a tag:

<contract>
...the pasted text...
</contract>

The one-minute audit

Read your prompt back and name the six slots. If you cannot point at the escape hatch, add it: that one line prevents the most expensive failure, which is a confidently invented answer to a question your material never covered.