TechniqueArtificial intelligenceCareers
A prompt is a brief: task, role, background and output format
The idea
Most disappointing answers from a model are underspecified questions. Anthropic's own walkthrough of a working prompt structures it the way a good brief to a junior is structured: what the task is, what role the model is playing, the background it needs to do the job, and the format the output should take. The analogy is useful for a finance candidate because it is the same skill as briefing an analyst, and because it reframes prompting from a trick into a form of clear writing. A brief that would confuse a person will confuse the model, and the fix is the same.
Write to a model as you would brief a capable junior: the task, their role, the context they lack, and what the output should look like.
When it works
Using any model on real work, and explaining in an interview how you would get a useful answer from one.
When it may fail
A good brief cannot supply information the model does not have, and the structure does nothing for a task the model cannot do. It removes the avoidable failures, which are most of them.
How to use it
Take a prompt that disappointed you and rewrite it with four labelled parts: task, role, background, output format. Run both and compare. The L3VLUP skills library has worked briefs for finance tasks.
Where it came from
Video Prompting 101 · Anthropic
What the source says. Anthropic walks the structure of a working prompt: task context, then the background detail it needs.
Connected ideas
Says something similar
The context window is not the constraint people think it is; attention across it isA long window degrades before it fills; curate and order what goes in rather than relying on size.
Puts it to work
Which parts of the analyst job compress, and which get more valuablePrepare for the parts of the job the tools make scarce, judgement and client sense, rather than the parts they make cheap.
Concepts
Put it to work on L3VLUP
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