Prompt Recipes — the tool-neutral pack
The starter project is the richer option, but it’s built for Claude —
CLAUDE.md, skills, slash commands. If your company approved Copilot,
Gemini, ChatGPT Enterprise, or anything else, you shouldn’t have to
translate it. This is the same set of jobs as plain prompts you can
paste into any assistant.
Everything here works by copy-paste. If your tool lets you save custom instructions, a “custom GPT,” a “Gem,” or a saved prompt, save the ones you use weekly — that’s how you get the starter project’s convenience without the starter project.
Before anything: use your company’s approved, paid account, and never paste anything from your team’s “what never goes in” list. If you don’t have that list yet, that’s the first thing to make — see the policy template.
Set the context once (paste this at the top)
The single biggest quality difference between a good result and a generic one is context. In the starter project this lives in files the tool reads automatically. Without those files, paste a short version at the top of a new chat — or save it as your tool’s custom instructions so it’s always on.
Context for this conversation. Keep it in mind for everything I ask.
- Team: [what we do, who we serve]
- Me: [my role]
- How we write: [e.g. plain, direct, no hype; short sentences; we say
"customer" not "user"]
- Our terms: [the 5–10 acronyms/systems an outsider wouldn't know]
- Never include in your output: [customer names, internal figures,
anything from our data-rules list]
When you're missing something you need, ask me instead of guessing.Fill it in once, keep it in a note, and paste it at the start of any session where output quality matters.
The recipes
Each is a copy-paste prompt. Replace the [bracketed] parts, or paste
your material below the prompt.
1. Recurring report
The highest-value task most teams have: same structure every week, different numbers.
Draft my [weekly/monthly] [report name] from the material below.
- Match the structure of last time exactly — same headings, same order,
same length. (I've pasted last week's version below; if I haven't,
ask for it — the delta is half the point.)
- Lead the summary with what CHANGED, not everything that happened.
- Put numbers in a table with a "vs. last period" column.
- Where a number is missing, leave a clearly marked blank. Do not
invent or estimate figures.
Last time's version:
[paste]
This period's inputs (numbers, notes, ticket export):
[paste]2. Reply draft
Draft a reply to the message below.
- Match the tone I'd use with this person: [colleague / customer /
exec]. Default to warm, brief, and clear.
- Answer every question they actually asked — list them first if there
are several, so none gets dropped.
- If a reply requires information I haven't given you, don't make it up:
mark it [NEED: …] so I can fill it in.
- Give me the draft only, then one line on anything I should double
check before sending.
Their message:
[paste]
What I want to convey:
[a sentence or two]3. Turn notes into actions (meeting notes)
Turn these raw notes into a short, usable summary.
- 2–3 sentence recap at the top.
- A "Decisions" list.
- An "Action items" table: task | owner | due date. Only list an owner
or date if the notes actually name one — otherwise write "unassigned"
rather than guessing.
- An "Open questions" list for anything left unresolved.
Don't add anything that isn't in the notes.
Notes:
[paste]4. Brief me on a long document (doc brief)
I have to read the document below but don't have time for all of it.
Give me:
- The point, in 3 sentences.
- What it's asking of me or my team, if anything.
- The 3–5 things that matter most, as bullets.
- Anything surprising, risky, or that contradicts what I'd expect.
- Page/section pointers so I can jump to the parts I should read in
full myself.
Don't let the summary become the only thing I read — flag what I still
need to verify with my own eyes.
Document:
[paste]5. Explain it in plain English
Explain the following in plain English, for someone smart who doesn't
know this area. No jargon; where a technical term is unavoidable,
define it in the same sentence. Short paragraphs. If it matters why
this is true, say why.
[paste the jargon, contract clause, error message, spreadsheet formula,
or acronym-laden paragraph]6. Critique a draft before it goes out
Have the holes found while there’s still time to fix them.
Critique the draft below before I send it. Read it the way its actual
audience will — skimming, half-interested, looking for what it means
for them. Report:
- If they read only the first two sentences, what do they come away
with? Is that the point I intended?
- What could be misread, especially in a defensive or alarming way.
Quote the line.
- What's missing: an unclear ask, no owner, no date, an unanswered
question.
- Any number or claim I couldn't back up if challenged — flag every
one.
- What to cut. Quote it. Most drafts are 20% too long.
End with a one-line verdict: send as-is / small edits / needs a
rethink. Be direct; don't manufacture problems if it's genuinely good.
Draft:
[paste]7. Build a checklist
Turn the process below into a checklist someone could follow the first
time without me in the room.
- Ordered steps, each a single concrete action.
- Call out the 2–3 steps people most often get wrong or skip.
- Note where a step needs judgment vs. where it's mechanical.
- Add a short "before you start" list of what they need on hand.
The process:
[paste, or describe it]Two habits that matter more than any prompt
Verify what leaves your hands. These tools state wrong things — wrong numbers, invented quotes, plausible-looking names — with complete confidence. For anything that goes to a customer or drives a decision, check the facts, not just the tone. You own what you send. There’s a one-page way to do this consistently in the operating templates — the output-evaluation checklist.
Give it a role and a reader, not just a task. “Rewrite this” gets you generic. “Rewrite this for a customer who’s frustrated and short on time, in our plain house voice” gets you something you can almost send. The context block at the top of this page does half that work already; the rest is naming, each time, who the output is for.
Related: the full rollout guidance is in managers-toolkit.md; the richer Claude-based version of these jobs is the starter project in workshop-starter/README.md.