You will not be there to correct it
In a chat window, a vague instruction costs you one exchange. Something unhelpful comes back, you say no, not like that, and you steer. The conversation is a series of small corrections and you are present for every one of them.
A handed-over job does not work like that. You describe it, the work carries on without you, and the next time you engage with it the whole thing is finished. Every ambiguity you left in the brief has already been resolved by something other than you, in a direction you did not choose, and quite possibly propagated through five subsequent steps.
So the entire skill is front-loaded. You have to say what finished looks like before anything starts.
In plain English
- Brief:
- The full description of a job, written before it begins, rather than a single instruction.
- Definition of done:
- A description of the finished thing precise enough that you and Claude would both recognise it.
- Gap rule:
- Your standing instruction for what to do when information is missing. Ask, flag, or stop, but never invent.
- Out of scope:
- The things the job must not touch, stated positively rather than assumed.
Four parts, and the last two are the ones people skip
The finished artefact. Not the topic, the thing. A one page summary. A table with these five columns. A folder of renamed files. Say what it is, how long it is, and what shape it takes. If you cannot describe the output, you are not ready to hand the job over, and that is useful information in itself.
The constraints. Length, tone, audience, and above all the sources. Which files count. Which do not. Whether figures may be recalculated or must be quoted exactly as written. Sources are the constraint people forget, and it is the one that decides whether the output is true.
What to do about gaps. Every real job has holes in it. A missing date, a status nobody updated, two documents that disagree. Without an instruction, the gap gets filled with something plausible, and plausible is precisely the failure mode you cannot see afterwards. Say what you want instead: write NOT FOUND, list the questions at the end, or stop and ask.
What it must not touch. State this positively. Do not create files outside this folder. Do not rename or move anything. Do not send, publish or post. Do not open the archive subfolder. Boundaries that stay in your head are not boundaries.
โ Weak prompt
Prompt
Pull together the quarterly report from the finance folder.
Output
A polished report. Two of the figures were reconstructed from a superseded draft, one deadline was inferred from a filename, and a gap in March was smoothed over with an average.
No definition of done, no source rule, no gap rule. Every hole in the material was filled silently, and the smooth result gives you nothing to be suspicious about.
โ Good prompt
Prompt
Produce the quarterly report as a single page with four sections: revenue, costs, headcount, risks. Use only the files in Finance slash Q2 Final. Ignore anything in Drafts. Quote every figure exactly as it appears, never recalculate or average. Where a month has no figure, write NOT FOUND on its own line. Do not create files outside this folder, and do not rename or move anything. List every question you had at the end rather than resolving it yourself.
Output
A one page report with four sections, three NOT FOUND lines and a closing list of four questions about conflicting figures.
The gaps are now visible instead of smoothed away. Four questions at the end is a better outcome than a seamless report you cannot trust.
Checkpoint
Finished artefact, constraints, gap rule, boundaries. The last two are the ones that get skipped and the ones that cause the damage.
Why the gap rule earns its place
Of the four, the gap rule changes outcomes most, because it converts an invisible failure into a visible one.
A job run without a gap rule hands you a document with no seams in it. Everything reads evenly. You have no way to tell which sentences came from your files and which were assembled to fill a hole. A job run with a gap rule hands you a document with holes clearly marked, and marked holes are cheap to fix. Ten minutes chasing four flagged questions beats a fortnight not knowing that a figure was invented.
THE FINISHED THING
What it is: [document, table, folder, list]
How long: [pages, rows, words]
Structure: [the sections you want, in order]
CONSTRAINTS
Sources: use only [named folders or files]
Ignore: [anything that must not be used]
Figures and dates: quote exactly as written, never recalculate
Audience and tone: [who reads it, how it should sound]
WHEN SOMETHING IS MISSING
Never estimate, infer or fill in a gap.
Write NOT FOUND in place of any missing value.
Where two sources disagree, show both and flag the conflict.
List every question you had at the end.
MUST NOT TOUCH
Do not create anything outside [folder]
Do not rename, move or delete anything
Do not send, publish or post anything
Stop and wait for my approval when finished
Produce the monthly team update as one page.
Sections in this order: shipped, in progress, blocked, next month.
Use only the files in Team slash July. Ignore the Archive subfolder.
Every date quoted exactly as written in the source. Never estimate one.
Plain sentences, no adjectives, under 400 words.
If an item has no owner, write UNASSIGNED.
If an item has no date, write NO DATE.
Where the tracker and the notes disagree, show both and flag it.
Create nothing outside Team slash July. Rename nothing. Send nothing.
Finish with WHAT I ASSUMED and WHAT I COULD NOT FIND, then wait.
GAPS AND BOUNDARIES
Never invent a value to fill a gap. Missing is a valid answer.
Write NOT FOUND rather than estimating, inferring or averaging.
Show conflicts rather than resolving them.
Do not widen the scope of this job on your own judgement.
Do not touch anything I have not named.
Nothing leaves this folder or reaches another person without my approval.
Write the brief once, keep it, and improve it each time you run the job. The second run is where a brief becomes genuinely good, because you now know exactly which ambiguity it exploited the first time.
๐ Quiz
Question 1 of 4Why does briefing matter more here than in an ordinary chat conversation?