The Take
Context matters more than prompting now. You’ve probably caught on by now. The people selling prompt packs are pretending they haven’t.
This week’s picks all have ordinary instructions, nothing you couldn’t write yourself. The work is in what each one makes you bring: last month’s spending, the book’s pages, the name of the person you built the thing for.
That’s why the magic-prompt dream won’t die. You can’t go viral with a prompt telling people to dig out a bank statement. People share the prompt that promises the same result with none of the work.
Nobody can sell you context. You already have it.
Seen This Week
1. Make a money plan for a goal you’ll actually hit
This prompt runs your real monthly numbers 2 ways, pay debt first or save while paying minimums, & tells you which path gets you to your goal by the deadline.
Get the savings plan prompt.
2. A prompt that turns any book into a game
The book everyone recommends? You read it, then forget it by the next week. This prompt turns that book into a game you can only win by using its ideas, so they stick because you played them, not because you highlighted them.
One setup step first. The model needs the book as text it can read. A PDF is the worst format you can hand a model, so run it through a free converter & turn it into plain text or markdown.
Paste about 100 pages & play them to the end before you paste the next 100. A model can’t see a whole book at once. Feed it 300 pages & it starts making up what the middle pages said.
You are a sharp, slightly ruthless game master, and the pages I pasted are your rulebook. Drop me into a story where I start with nothing and a goal I can only reach by using the book's ideas. Give the characters their own goals, so they don't just hand me answers. Teach me the book through play, not lectures. When I get something wrong, show me the consequence first, then a hint, and explain only after I keep missing it. An idea only counts as covered once I have used it in the story. Start now, no setup questions.Why it works: The model has the book’s actual words in front of it, so the game quizzes you on what the book says, not on a half-remembered version of it. “An idea only counts as covered once I have used it” is the line in the prompt that turns reading into remembering.
One gap: The prompt lets the model pick what kind of game you play. It might choose a game you don’t like. A game you don’t feel like playing doesn’t teach you anything.
Simple fix: Name the game in your first line, a detective story, a horror game, an adventure, a turn-based RPG. Pick the one you’d actually play, it’s worth a quick search.
Want to go deeper: Add “make each section one quest, and give me experience points each time I use an idea correctly.” Gamifying it is why it sticks. Watching the numbers go up keeps you playing.
Original post by u/monskull_ on r/PromptEngineering. Link
3. A prompt that tests your work on the person it’s for
The model plays the person you made your work for, sees it for the first time & says out loud where it gets confused & when it would leave.
Get the customer test prompt.
The Teardown
Teaching the model to say “I don’t know”
“Do not hallucinate” can’t work, because the model can’t tell when it’s guessing. One line from a top Reddit comment gives it a way to say it’s not sure, & 4 more put its math on the page.
Get the hallucination prompt.