Week 1: Foundations

Day 5: Prompts as Instructions

Day 5 of 2815 minGoal - Learn - Example - Practice - Checkpoint

Goal

Use prompts as clear instructions, not vague wishes.

Learn

A strong prompt usually includes role, context, goal, constraints, and output format. The model does not know what you value unless you tell it. Better prompts define the task, audience, source material, style, limits, and success criteria.

Behind the scenes
AI tools are products wrapped around models, data, prompts, retrieval, safety systems, and user interfaces. The better you understand the wrapper, the better your results get.

Example

"Write a short, warm email to a client about a delayed invoice" is stronger than "write something about money."

Practice

Rewrite this vague prompt: “help me with AI” into a specific prompt for learning, writing, coding, or research.

Checkpoint

Checkpoint
You can turn a vague request into a usable instruction.