10. Quick Reference Card

Use this section before any serious prompt. It is a checklist, not a script.

The 6-Layer Prompt Checklist

Goal: Is it surgical and specific? Could someone else read this and know exactly what success looks like?
Context: Does the model know who I am and what my actual situation is?
Task: Is the action verb precise? (explain / generate / evaluate / compare / critique / summarise)
Constraints: Have I explicitly said what to exclude, what level to aim for, what not to assume?
Output Format: Is the structure defined? (table / bullet / prose / spoken / code / numbered steps)
Meta: Have I told it how to think? (depth over breadth / be honest not encouraging / flag uncertainty)

Depth Triggers (Use Selectively)

Use Case	Trigger Option A	Trigger Option B
Finding gaps	"What assumptions did you make? List them."	"What am I missing or not thinking about?"
Stress-testing	"Where does this fail or break down?"	"Pre-mortem: it failed 6 months from now. Why?"
Forcing specificity	"Remove everything that applies to anyone."	"Give me the mechanism, not the summary."
Balancing views	"Make the strongest case against your own answer."	"What would a skeptic say about this?"
Calibrating trust	"Tag each claim: confident / uncertain / speculative."	"What should I verify independently?"
Extracting value	"What is the single most important takeaway?"	"What is the one thing I must not forget?"

Domain Quick Guides

Domain	Core Rule	Power Move
Chat AI	Set context first. Iterate always. Use it to challenge your thinking, not just produce content.	Power move: ask it to ask you clarifying questions before it answers.
Code AI	Give architecture context. Scope tightly. Ask for approach before code. Review output critically.	Power move: ask it to do a senior engineer PR review of its own output.
Image / Video	Describe what is seen, not what is felt. Add: subject + style + lighting + mood + camera.	Power move: reverse-engineer a reference image using chat AI to get the prompt.

After any output: "What assumption did you make that might not apply to my situation?"
Then: "Revise with this correction: [specific fix]. Change only that, leave the rest."
Then: "What is the one thing from this entire response I must not forget?"

Final Word

Prompting is not a list of tricks. It is a way of thinking clearly.

The person who wins is not the one who knows the most techniques. It is the one who is most precise about what they want, most honest about what they do not know, and most disciplined about iterating until the output is actually useful. That is a skill. And like all skills, it compounds with practice.