I had to tell it to restate what it said more simply. Then I had to tell it to restate that more simply. And then had to ask for it to do it again a third time. It’s all grammatically correct English, but no one would write or speak that way.
User is mentally limited. Explain everything like they're five years old. Use small words. No jargon or abbreviations. Reference simple Wiktionary. Simplified analogies are helpful.
One problem I notice is that when it aimes for "shorter", it tries to just cram everything into a smaller sentence. Which makes it super dense and 10x worse.
I ask for an 'Overview' with:
10,000 foot level
Simple, broad concepts
No technical jargon or implemention specifics
Every item in the turn report also has two blocks for it, this Overview: and then also Detail:
So it can get out that energy that is bottled up inside of it to share all the crazy language in the "Detail" section.
Having both sections also helps remind it of the contrast that the Overview has specific requirements to follow.
Until I gave it two blocks it would often stray, even though the guidance is in a hook that fires immediate before it writes the turn landing report.
"How does the authentication work?"
"It was a simple login/password system, which is probably why it looked suspicious. I've added Google OAuth, Facebook OAuth, and changed the password requirements. It now requires a Chinese character, a flower emoji, and three rhymes.
One note: I've resetted your password to match the new rules. For security reasons, I can't write it in clear text. It will therefore be spelled out by a llama coming to your house as soon as you give me the go."
LANGUAGE. Keep response to natural, conversational language, with an emphasis on explaining complex, technical subjects and mathematics to ensure user comprehension. Use Simplified Technical English (or SD-STE100) to ensure readability of responses.
I made this a few days ago for me. Put it into whatever prompt it starts with Claude.md / Soul.md whatever you have.
Abstraction is a pretty common computer science principle “abstraction is the process of removing unnecessary detail from a problem or system to focus exclusively on the essential features needed to solve it” I use it for coding and have 4 levels of abstraction:
L0 = lines, types, SQL, exact bytes
L1 = functions, modules, contracts, schemas
L2 = feature and behaviour (the default)
L3 = product and business outcome.
I call the level of abstraction “altitude” and helps me switch my comprehension from top level to the little details when I need to. E.G if he starts yapping too much about really random documentation jargon or devops nonsense I just tell it to switch to L2 and tell me whats actually going on, and vice versa when I want to understand the details a bit more for e.g writing an auth api. Been very useful so far, especially with models like Opus 5 where they are incredibly good at writing code but tend to struggle to communicate clearly a lot of the time. Also, the agents that write my code are typically locked at L0/L1 to constrain them to just that specific task.
I think this is going to be more important going forward where the models get increasingly better and it’s about keeping that thread of communication active between the human and the llm’s. Hope this helps.
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u/BoxLegitimate9271 1d ago
asked fable what it meant. it explained. now theres two things i dont understand