Lesson 5 of 5 · 12 minutes · Module 2: Fix it and keep it
Build your own prompt kit
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.
Step 1 of 6
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.
CheckpointYou’ve written down three jobs.
Step 2 of 6
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 documentWrite 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.CheckpointYou’ve got one template with square brackets where the details go.
Step 3 of 6
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 toolWrite 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.The reply we got on 2026-10-03, unedited. Read our reply.
Screenshot to come
We haven’t captured this step yet. We’d rather show nothing than an old or made-up screen.
CheckpointYour first template has worked on a real job.
Step 4 of 6
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 toolTurn 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 reply after the fix. The first test, before the fix, is in outputs/kit-post.response.md. Read our reply.
Screenshot to come
We haven’t captured this step yet. We’d rather show nothing than an old or made-up screen.
CheckpointYour second template has been tested, fixed if needed, and tested again.
Step 5 of 6
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 toolCheck 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."The reply we got on 2026-10-03, unedited. Read our reply.
Screenshot to come
We haven’t captured this step yet. We’d rather show nothing than an old or made-up screen.
CheckpointAll three templates have been tested on real jobs.
Step 6 of 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.
Screenshot captured 3 October 2026. - Prompt 1: reply to a customer
- Square brackets: the bits you change each time
- Prompt 2: notes into a post
- What we changed after testing it
- Prompt 3: check my writing
CheckpointYour prompt kit is saved: three tested templates in one document.
Common problems
The finished page
When you have finished
Want to keep your place? Get a sign-in link by email and we’ll save your progress. You can keep reading either way. Sign in to save your progress.
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/.