The Prompt Library
This isn't a pile of five hundred prompts. It's the operational layer of a decision framework — the working artifacts from the Before You Build trilogy, published free, with the reasoning that makes each one work. Every entry has three parts: the artifact you copy, why it's built the way it is, and what to do with the output — because a prompt whose output goes nowhere is just expensive exhaust. General-purpose packs by job start here.
A prompt is something you say to an AI: you pick it up, run the task, put it down — and you're the one driving. Over in Skills & Setups live their installed cousins: standing behavior the AI applies every time, whether or not you remember to ask. The routing test fits in one breath — say it once, it's a prompt; want it enforced every time, it's a skill. Most disciplines start here and graduate there. The 100-times rule applies to instructions too. And one more boundary, enforced: everything on this page is something you say to an AI. The instruments you run yourself, on paper — the two-sentence test, the Decision Document, the checklists — live in The Worksheets.
6 packs · 6 prompts
All prompt packs
- Plan the project before you prompt
The Universal Kickoff Prompt
A single prompt that runs a 30-minute project-planning session before any AI work begins — scope, decomposition, sequencing, verification, and recovery in one pass — so you don't hand AI a 200-hour job as one over-prompt.
Open pack - Move work between tools without losing it
The Universal Handoff Template
A prompt that produces a handoff brief to move AI work between workplaces — chat to coding agent, anywhere to anywhere — without losing the decisions, drafts, and context you've built up.
Open pack - Deep research that starts from the decision
The Research Brief
A fill-in brief that turns any deep research run answer-shaped: what you are deciding, what would change your mind, and what counts as evidence — so the output is a decision, not a survey.
Open pack - Turn your writing into standing instructions
The Voice Capture
A run-once prompt that extracts your writing voice from real samples and returns it as standing instructions you can paste into a project — so every future draft starts in your voice, not everyone’s.
Open pack - An interview that doesn’t accept your first answer
The Goals Session
A structured coaching-style interview prompt: one question at a time, follow-ups that push past the rehearsed answer, no advice until the listening is done — ending in a 90-day focus and the first week’s moves.
Open pack - Hand the planner your whole system
The Framework
The other hand-maintained file — and the biggest prompt on this site, on purpose. The document you hand a fresh Claude.ai session at the start of a build project, so it becomes the planner and generates every operating file the project needs.
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