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Prompt

A prompt is the instructions you type to an AI agent: what you want, what it needs to know, and where to stop.

It's not a magic phrase for an agent. It's a brief, and it behaves like any brief you've handed a contractor: vague in, vague out.

You'll write them constantly, and the good ones are longer and duller than you'd expect: what you're trying to do, what you already tried, what counts as done, and where to stop.

The common mistake is asking for the fix before the explanation. Make it tell you what's wrong first. Then decide.

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Paste this first

Something broke

I just did this: <what you clicked or typed, in a few words>
This is what I got: <paste the error here, or drag in a screenshot>

I don't know what it means. Work out what went wrong and fix it. Then tell me in one plain sentence what was wrong and what you changed, and stop.

Is this really for you?

1 of 7 Where do you sell online?
2 of 7 Would you like software built around exactly how your business works?
3 of 7 When something in your software needs changing, how do you want that to happen?
4 of 7 Have you ever written code?
5 of 7 If something breaks, what kind of help do you need?
6 of 7 Do you pay monthly for an app where you only really use one or two of its features?
7 of 7 Building your app means using an AI assistant like Claude or ChatGPT on a paid monthly plan. Are you OK with that?