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Prompt Patterns Library
19 reusable patterns for the work you actually have to do this week — a decision memo out of a dead email thread, a summary you can check line by line, a spreadsheet formula you can still read in six months. Each one is a template, a before-and-after, and a practical you have to actually do.
How this fits. A separate, optional track. It does not change the 78-week curriculum, add weeks to your roadmap, or affect your progress. It is the quick-win on-ramp: every pattern ends with a link into the first-principles lesson that explains why it works, because copying a prompt is not the same as understanding one.
19 patterns across 6 modules
Prompt foundations
The four moving parts of every good prompt — role, context, task, format — plus the two moves that fix most bad answers.
You walk away able to: Turn a vague request into a prompt that lands on the first or second try.
The four-part prompt
The one prompt structure worth memorising: say who the model should be, what it cannot guess, exactly what to do, and the shape of the answer you want back.
Use this when your first attempt came back generic, waffly, or the wrong shape — which is most of the time.
Open the pattern →Show one example
When the output shape is hard to describe in words, stop describing it. Paste one example of exactly what you want and ask for more of that.
Use this when you have described the format twice and the model still gets it subtly wrong.
Open the pattern →Ask me questions first
Instead of letting the model invent the details you forgot to mention, make it ask you for them before it writes a single line.
Use this when the task is big enough that one wrong assumption early on wastes the whole output.
Open the pattern →Critique then revise
A two-pass prompt: get a draft, then hand over your real criteria and make the model find its three weakest points before it rewrites anything.
Use this when a draft is 70% right and you can feel what is wrong but cannot articulate the fix.
Open the pattern →Writing & content
Turn messy input into a decision, a draft, or a rewrite that keeps every fact and changes only the tone.
You walk away able to: Produce a usable first draft from raw notes without inventing facts.
Decision memo from a thread
Turn a 40-message email or WhatsApp thread into a one-page memo: what was decided, who owns what by when, and what is still unresolved.
Use this when a long thread has gone quiet and nobody is sure what was actually agreed.
Open the pattern →Tone shift, same facts
Rewrite anything for a different audience while locking the facts in place — with an explicit check that nothing was added, softened, or quietly dropped.
Use this when the same information has to reach two very different readers — a teacher and a parent, a recruiter and an engineer.
Open the pattern →Outline before prose
Stop rewriting finished drafts. Get the argument as a numbered outline first, fix the structure while it is cheap, then release the model to write.
Use this for anything over roughly 300 words, where a structural mistake means throwing away the whole draft.
Open the pattern →Docs & research
Summarise long documents so the claims stay traceable, pull structure out of prose, and find the holes in an argument.
You walk away able to: Summarise a 40-page PDF and check every claim against the source.
Summarise with receipts
Summarise a long PDF, paper or web page so that every claim carries the quote and location it came from — turning an unverifiable summary into a checkable one.
Use this whenever you will act on the summary, cite it, or repeat it to somebody who trusts you.
Open the pattern →Extract to table
Turn unstructured text — reviews, notes, job posts, a chapter — into a table with columns you defined, where missing data shows up as missing.
Use this when you need to compare many things on the same handful of attributes.
Open the pattern →Steelman then gaps
Get the best version of an argument you disagree with, then the specific evidence that would change your mind — instead of a balanced-sounding list of nothing.
Use this before a decision you are already leaning on, or when you need to argue a side you did not pick.
Open the pattern →Data & spreadsheets
Formulas you can maintain, cleaning rules you approve before they run, and charts that answer one question.
You walk away able to: Interrogate a messy spreadsheet without silently breaking the data.
Formula with explanation
Ask for the formula, a part-by-part explanation, and the case where it breaks. Pasting a formula you cannot read is how spreadsheets go quietly wrong.
Use this every single time you ask for a spreadsheet formula, however small.
Open the pattern →Cleaning rules first
Never let a tool clean your data straight away. Make it propose numbered, reviewable rules, and make it show you what each rule would change.
Use this before any bulk edit of data you cannot easily undo.
Open the pattern →Question before chart
Charts fail because the question was never stated. Name the question and the data's shape first, then get chart options with the honest trade-off of each.
Use this before making any chart somebody else will look at.
Open the pattern →Slides & storytelling
One message per slide, a “so what” that survives questions, and speaker notes you can actually say out loud.
You walk away able to: Build a deck that argues a point instead of listing topics.
One message per slide
Turn notes into a deck where every slide headline is a full sentence making one claim, so the deck argues a case instead of listing topics.
Use this when you have material but no deck, and you do not want to end up with fifteen slides titled “Overview”.
Open the pattern →The so-what ladder
Take a raw finding and push it up three rungs — what it means, why it matters, what to do — so your presentation ends in an action, not a number.
Use this when you have a result and someone is about to ask “and?”
Open the pattern →Speaker notes you can say
Get speaker notes built from short spoken sentences, a transition into the next slide, and the two questions you are most likely to be asked.
Use this the day before you present, once the slides have stopped changing.
Open the pattern →Workflow automation
Recurring prompts with a stable, auditable output shape — meeting notes, inbox triage, weekly reviews.
You walk away able to: Hand a repeating chore to an assistant and still be able to check the result.
Meeting notes to owners
Turn a transcript or scribbled notes into four fixed sections, where an unassigned action shows up as unassigned instead of being handed to whoever spoke last.
Use this within an hour of any meeting where something was supposed to be decided.
Open the pattern →Inbox triage rules
Do not ask an assistant to sort your inbox. Ask it to propose explicit triage rules you can read, argue with, and reuse every week.
Use this when the same kinds of message keep arriving and you keep making the same sorting decision by hand.
Open the pattern →Weekly review digest
One reusable prompt that turns a week of scattered notes into a fixed-format digest, so weeks become comparable instead of blurring together.
Use this once a week, at the same time, with whatever raw material the week left behind.
Open the pattern →Using AI well is the on-ramp. Building it is the road.
These patterns make you faster this week. The 78-week curriculum makes you the person who can build the thing — predict, build and explain every idea from the mathematics up, with an AI tutor that gives hints, not answers. The first five lessons are free.
How to use a pattern
- Read “use this when” and check it matches the job in front of you.
- Copy the template and fill the bracketed slots with your own specifics.
- Do the practical on real work of yours — not on the example.
- Score yourself against the rubric, then answer the reflection question in your own words.
- Follow the bridge link to find out why it worked.