1In one sentence
Every great request is built from up to nine small parts, and once you know them you can build a request for anything, from an email to a video plan.
2New words
- Master Prompt — our name for a request that has all the parts it needs, written in a fixed order. It is the shape every scenario card in this guide uses.
- Role — who you want Claude to be for this task (a teacher, a lawyer, a film director). It changes the words and the level of the answer.
- Constraint — a rule the answer must follow: length, language, style, things to avoid.
- Format — the shape of the answer: a list, a table, an email, a file.
3Why you would want it
Chapter 4.1 showed that four questions turn a vague ask into a good one. The nine blocks are the full version. You will not use all nine every time; a quick question needs two or three. But for anything you will send, publish, or build on, filling the nine blocks is the difference between a draft and a finished piece.
| # | Block | The question it answers | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Role | Who should Claude be? | You are an experienced travel planner |
| 2 | Goal | What is the one outcome? | Plan a 4-day family trip to Istanbul |
| 3 | Context | What facts matter? | Two adults, two kids aged 6 and 9, first visit, budget is medium |
| 4 | Inputs | What am I giving you? | Attached: our flight times |
| 5 | Constraints | What rules apply? | No more than 2 activities a day; walking distance; kid-friendly food |
| 6 | Process | How should you work? | Ask me 2 questions first; then draft; then check for tired-kid mistakes |
| 7 | Output format | What shape? | A table: day, morning, afternoon, evening, notes |
| 8 | Quality bar | How do we know it is good? | Every activity has a time, a place and a reason it suits kids |
| 9 | Surface and tools | Where should this run? | Chat with web search on, so opening hours are current |
4Try it now
- Copy the nine example lines above into a new chat, one per line, exactly as written.
- Press Enter and watch the answer.
- Now change block 3 to your own family and block 2 to a city you want to visit, and send it again.
5What you will see
Because block 6 asked for it, Claude asks two questions before planning:
After you answer, it works through the process you gave it (a progress panel shows the steps: check opening hours, draft the table, run the tired-kid check):
Then the table arrives in the exact shape you asked for: day, morning, afternoon, evening, notes, with times, places and the reason each activity suits children:
With your own details in blocks 2 and 3, the plan becomes actually yours.
6Watch out
- Block 2 (goal) and block 7 (format) are the two you must never skip. Everything else can be short or missing.
- Do not write a role you do not need. "You are a world-class genius" adds nothing; "you are a pediatric nurse" changes the answer.
7Go further
Save the nine blocks as a note on your phone and fill them before any important request. Later chapters show the same nine blocks for emails, spreadsheets, research and videos; the generator in our app will fill them for you.