The trap with coding prompts is asking for the finished thing. Ask for options instead, then bring your taste to the edit.
Reuse the recipe
Write down what you never want as explicitly as what you do. The exclusions often do more work than the instructions.
- Keep one ask per prompt — chaining beats cramming
- Have the model flag what it could not cover
- Name the audience and the single goal before you generate
Anchor to one reader
Lock the parts that never change and leave one slot for the variable. Now every run shares a family resemblance instead of starting from scratch.
Ask for the reasoning, then the result. When the model shows its steps you can see exactly where to push back.