Prompt better · Practical guide

Give AI a better brief. Get a better result.

Beginner · Published 2026-09-28 · Reviewed 2026-10-05

Tools: Claude
Audience: People getting started with AI
Topic: Prompt better

You’ll finish with: a prompt that has enough context to produce a reviewable first draft.

Better briefs spare you three rounds of “that is not quite what I meant”. Start with the result and the reader. The AI cannot know your manager dislikes long introductions unless someone tells it.

Set up

Set aside 15 minutes with any text-based AI assistant and a plain text editor. You will write a brief before asking for a draft.

Download this guide’s practice sheet ↓

Try this example

FICTIONAL PRACTICE MATERIAL
Audience: operations manager. Purpose: decide whether to trial a shared handover sheet. Current issue: two missed callbacks last week. Proposal: test for five working days. Budget: no new software. Approval: not yet given.

Do the task

Separate the task, context, audience, limits and desired format into five lines.
Paste the example and ask for a brief. Answer only questions that affect the decision.
Use the brief to request one draft, then check it against the original five lines.

Your reusable prompt

Turn the supplied facts into a writing brief for a 150-word trial proposal. Include the reader, decision needed, evidence supplied, constraints and unknowns. Do not draft the proposal yet.

PRACTICE INPUT
Audience: operations manager. Purpose: decide whether to trial a shared handover sheet. Current issue: two missed callbacks last week. Proposal: test for five working days. Budget: no new software. Approval: not yet given.

Refine your result

Check your brief for invented targets or approval. Make the five-day trial a proposal, with no claim that it will prevent every missed callback.

Check the result

The result should request a decision, preserve the zero-software-budget constraint and cite two missed callbacks as an observation, not proof of a cause.

Save and reuse

Keep brief-v1.txt alongside the resulting draft. Next time, change the facts before reusing the brief.

Sources and notes

Writing clear prompts Checked 2026-10-05

The practice input and teaching prompt are original 5HO material. Examples are fictional; they are not screenshots or claims of a completed real-world task.
Official documentation supports the relevant product concepts. Setup availability depends on your account; where a guide offers a fallback, it does not prove the connected capability worked.