19How to frame a task

You don't need to memorise prompt templates. Four questions are enough; answer the ones that apply.

What I want. Concretely. Not "improve it" but "I want the form to validate the email and show the error under the field".

Why. This often changes everything. "Make it faster" and "make it faster because my users are on phones with bad signal" lead to different solutions.

What already exists. Code, a screenshot, a link, a description. The more concrete, the less it has to guess.

What not to do. An underrated one. "Don't add new libraries", "don't touch the other files", "no comments in the code" - constraints like these save a lot of time.

And a small trick to finish: if the task is big and murky, don't dive in. Ask it to ask you questions first. "Before you do anything, ask me what isn't clear" - and it will pull out of you the things you hadn't thought about.