You don't need a hundred coding prompts. You need five you trust and actually reuse.
Name the failure modes
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.
Generate options, not answers
Write down what you never want as explicitly as what you do. The exclusions often do more work than the instructions.
Cut before you polish
Treat the first output as a draft, not a verdict. The prompt does the typing; you keep the judgment about what ships.
- Compare two outputs instead of trusting one
- Have the model flag what it could not cover
- Save the prompt that worked so the next person reuses it
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.