Framing
The anatomy of an instruction
You are getting answers that are correct but generic, and you have no idea what to change in your request.
How it goes
do it yourself- Take your last unsatisfying request and count what it actually contained. Almost always: a task, and nothing else.
- Rewrite it as six named lines. A line you leave empty is information, not an oversight: you will know which one to add when an answer goes astray.
- Run the original request and the six-line version in two fresh conversations, and compare the answers side by side.
The instruction, word for word
copy it, then correct itRole: contract reviewer, used to service agreements. Context: I am about to sign a subcontracting agreement for a team of four. I am not a lawyer. Task: list the clauses that expose me, most serious first. Constraints: stick to the text provided, assume nothing about my sector, flag explicitly anything the contract is missing. Format: a list, one clause per line, each quoted in full before the explanation. Do not: conclude on whether I should sign, propose alternative wording.
- Role
- It sets the vocabulary and what counts as important. It makes nobody competent: a bad role gives a bad answer in the right jargon.
- Context
- What you know and the request alone does not say. This is the line that changes the answer most, and the one most often left out.
- Task
- One verb. Two verbs on this line give you two half-finished answers.
- Constraints
- What bounds the work. “Flag anything missing” is the most profitable constraint of all: without it, an absence quietly fills itself in.
- Format
- The shape of the output, described the way you would describe a template. It is what makes an answer usable without reading all of it.
- Do not
- This line exists because a default answer concludes, reassures and proposes: three things you did not ask for.
What you get out of it
The gap does not come from the “task” line, which has not changed a word. It comes from the other five, and above all from the two nobody ever writes: the expected format and the prohibitions. You come away with a reusable pattern and, worth more, with the ability to say which line to fix the next time an answer disappoints you.
Going further
Remove one line at a time and run it again. You will see which one carries the most, and it is not the same one for every kind of request: for an analysis it is the context, for a piece of output it is the format.