--- title: "Build your own prompt kit" url: https://aiguideson.com/courses/prompting-for-beginners/build-your-prompt-kit/ course: "Prompting for beginners" lesson: "5 of 5" minutes: 12 published: 2026-10-03 updated: 2026-10-03 author: "Jack Stovell" publisher: "Adapt Progress Evolve Limited" language: "en-GB" --- # Build your own prompt kit Lesson 5 of 5 in [Prompting for beginners](https://aiguideson.com/courses/prompting-for-beginners/) · 12 minutes You’ll finish this course with something you made: a prompt kit. It’s three prompts for jobs you do every week, written as fill-in templates, each one tested on a real job and fixed where it fell short, then saved together in one document. ## You need - A free ChatGPT or Claude account - Three jobs you do often, such as replying to emails, writing posts or checking your writing - A document to save your kit in A narrated walkthrough of this lesson is coming. The steps below cover everything in it. ## Steps ### Step 1: Pick three jobs you do every week Choose three jobs you do again and again. The best ones are short, repeated and easy to check. Ours, for the bakery, were: replying to customers, turning rough notes into a social media post, and checking writing for mistakes. (Screenshot to come.) Checkpoint: You’ve written down three jobs. ### Step 2: Turn your best prompt into a template Take a prompt that worked and replace the parts that change each time with square brackets, like [paste the email here]. Keep the parts that stay the same, especially your rules. Those are the parts that do the work. Here’s our first template. The prompt (works in Your prompt kit document): ```text Write a reply to the customer email below. About me: [one or two lines about you or your business] The email: "[paste the email here]" What I want to say: [your answer in a few words] Rules: Warm and short, under [80] words. UK English. Sign it from [your name]. Don't promise anything I haven't said here. If something in the email isn't clear, tell me rather than guessing. ``` - Square brackets show exactly what to fill in each time. - The rules stay the same every time, so you never forget them. - The last rule, "tell me rather than guessing", comes from lesson 4. (Screenshot to come.) Checkpoint: You’ve got one template with square brackets where the details go. ### Step 3: Test it on a real job Fill in the brackets with a real job and send it. Ours was a customer asking to get a loaf every week. The reply kept to what we’d said, and then listed what was missing: a start date, the price, and whether the collection times we usually give were right. The prompt (works in ChatGPT, Claude or any AI chat tool): ```text Write a reply to the customer email below. About me: I run Brook Lane Bakes, a home bakery. I make sourdough loaves and celebration cakes to order. Customers order by email and collect on Friday or Saturday, 8am to 1pm. The email: "Hello, do you do loaves every week? I'd love to get one regularly. Thanks, Dev" What I want to say: Yes, I can put him down for a sourdough loaf every Friday. He can cancel any week by emailing me by Wednesday. Rules: Warm and short, under 80 words. UK English. Sign it from Jo. Don't promise anything I haven't said here. If something in the email isn't clear, tell me rather than guessing. ``` - This is the template from step 2 with every bracket filled in. (Screenshot to come.) Checkpoint: Your first template has worked on a real job. ### Step 4: Test the second, and fix what falls short Do the same with your second template. Ours turned rough notes into a post, but wrote "we" when the baker always writes "I". So we added a rule, Write as "I", not "we", and tested it again. The second version used "I" and stuck to the notes. The prompt (works in ChatGPT, Claude or any AI chat tool): ```text Turn my notes below into a short post for my bakery's Facebook page. About me: I run Brook Lane Bakes, a home bakery in a small town. Customers order by email and collect on Friday or Saturday, 8am to 1pm. My notes: new this month - cinnamon and raisin sourdough. only 10 loaves each friday. order by email by wednesday. Rules: About 60 words. Friendly, plain UK English. Write as "I", not "we": it's just me. No emojis, no hashtags, no prices. Don't add any details that aren't in my notes. ``` - The rule Write as "I", not "we" was added after the first test went wrong. - "Don’t add any details that aren’t in my notes" keeps it to your facts. (Screenshot to come.) Checkpoint: Your second template has been tested, fixed if needed, and tested again. ### Step 5: Test the third Test your third template the same way. Ours asked it to check a short notice for mistakes and list the changes rather than rewrite it. We’d put six mistakes in. It found all six, and made one extra suggestion that was a matter of taste, which we could take or leave. The prompt (works in ChatGPT, Claude or any AI chat tool): ```text Check the text below for spelling, grammar and anything a reader might find unclear. Don't rewrite it. Give me a numbered list of changes, each with the original words, your suggestion and a one-line reason. If it's fine, say so. The text: "Thankyou to everyone who ordered there Christmas cakes this year. Collections is on Friday 18th and Saturday 19th December, 8am til 1pm. Please bring a bag, as I dont have boxes for loafs." ``` - "Don’t rewrite it" keeps your words yours. - Asking for the original, the suggestion and a reason lets you decide on each change yourself. (Screenshot to come.) Checkpoint: All three templates have been tested on real jobs. ### Step 6: Save your kit Put all three templates in one document, each with a heading. Under each, write a line about what you tested it on and anything you changed. Keep it somewhere you’ll find it, because it’s easy to forget where you put it. Next time, copy a template, fill in the brackets and send. ![Our finished prompt kit as a document: three numbered prompts (reply to a customer, turn my notes into a post, check my writing), each in a shaded box with square brackets for the parts to fill in, and a line under each saying what it was tested on.](https://aiguideson.com/courses/prompting-for-beginners/l5-prompt-kit.png) (screenshot captured 3 October 2026) 1. Prompt 1: reply to a customer 2. Square brackets: the bits you change each time 3. Prompt 2: notes into a post 4. What we changed after testing it 5. Prompt 3: check my writing Checkpoint: Your prompt kit is saved: three tested templates in one document. ## The finished page ![Our finished prompt kit for Brook Lane Bakes: three reusable, tested prompts with square brackets for the details.](https://aiguideson.com/courses/prompting-for-beginners/l5-prompt-kit.png) We wrote these templates for a made-up bakery and tested each one; the test replies are in outputs/. Your kit will have your own jobs in it. ## Common problems ### A template works once and not the next time AI gives a different answer each time. Test it on two or three different jobs, and add a rule for anything that goes wrong more than once. ### You forget to fill in a bracket Read the prompt before you send it. If you send a bracket by mistake, the AI may fill it with a guess. ### Your kit is getting long Keep the three you use most at the top. A short kit you use beats a long one you don’t. Step 6 is our own kit document rendered locally from outputs/prompt-kit.md and captured by tools/capture/prompting-for-beginners.mjs. Steps 3 to 5 happen in a signed-in chat, so they have no screenshot yet; every prompt and reply is in outputs/. ## Sources - [Claude Platform Docs: Reduce hallucinations](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/test-and-evaluate/strengthen-guardrails/reduce-hallucinations) (checked 2026-10-03)