When you ask AI to do something, it fills every gap with a guess. It doesn’t tell you it’s guessing. It writes something that sounds sure of itself, and you spend the next twenty minutes fixing the parts it got wrong.
Most of those gaps are things you know and forgot to say: who it’s for, what you’ve already tried, what you don’t want, what good looks like. Claude would happily ask about them. It just won’t unless you tell it to.
What it does
Put this line on the end of your request and Claude stops before doing anything. It works out a plan, asks you whatever it’s unsure about, and waits for your answers. Then it starts, with the gaps filled by you instead of by guesses.
When I use it
On almost anything bigger than a quick question. Updating a page on a website, writing a proposal, setting up a new way of doing something, building a document for a client. It’s on the end of most of the big requests I make.
How to use it
- Write your request the way you normally would. Say as much as you can.
- Paste the line at the end.
- Answer the questions. Short answers are fine.
- If you’re in a hurry, say “use your best judgement on the rest” and it’ll get going.
If you want to take this further, The AI Interview That Makes Every Prompt After It Better uses the same idea to get Claude to learn how you work, once, so you don’t have to explain it every time.