The Complete AI Workshop

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PART 0 · YOUR FIRST STEPS

0.5 · The 3 golden rules for talking to an AI

What you will be able to do
Write a clear request that gets far better answers, using three simple rules.
A tangle of threads going into a funnel and one tidy object coming out.
Three rules are enough to turn a vague request from a ball of tangles into a clear one.

In 2 minutes

The quality of the answer depends above all on the quality of the request. That is the best news in this handbook: you do not have to become technical to get better, you just have to say what you want more clearly.

Three rules are enough to start, and each one fits on a single line: say clearly what you want, give the context that matters, correct and ask again.

Let's do it together

Rule 1 · Say clearly what you want

Before
“Tell me about cooking.”
Far too vague. You get an encyclopaedia entry you will do nothing with.
After
“Give me three quick dish ideas for a weeknight dinner, based on pasta.”
You get three ideas you can use tonight.

Rule 2 · Give the context

Before
“Write a message.”
To whom? To say what? In what tone? The AI knows nothing about your situation.
After
“Write a message to my landlord reporting a leak under the sink, polite and firm, five lines maximum.”
Recipient, subject, tone, length: the message can be used as it is.

Rule 3 · Correct and ask again

The third rule is the most neglected, and it is the one that makes the biggest difference. You do not have to get it right first time. After the answer, you adjust in one sentence:

That's good, but make it shorter and add a request for a quick call-out.

Two or three exchanges of that kind are worth more than a perfect opening request, which nobody ever writes first time.

Tip

If you were to remember only one thing from this whole chapter: say who it is for, what it is for, and how long it should be. Those three details alone fix most disappointing answers.

Your turn

Take a vague request you genuinely have in mind, and rewrite it applying the three rules. Put both versions to Claude, one after the other, in two different conversations, and compare the answers.

It is the most useful exercise in the whole of Part 0.

You have got it if…
  • Your “after” version says who it is for, what it is for and how long it should be.
  • You can use the second answer without reworking it, or almost.
  • You can say which of the three details changed the result the most. That is the one you will forget least often from now on.
Traps to avoid
  • Trying to cram everything into one complicated sentence. Get to the point, then refine as the exchange goes on. A ten-line request is not ten times better.
  • Forgetting the context. The AI knows nothing about your job, your recipient or your constraints until you say so.

Where this takes you

These three rules are the short version of a single move: Describing. In Part I we will open it up into six reflexes, which are the same three rules, in finer detail.

Describing is the first of the handbook's four moves, the 4 Ds: Delegating (choosing what you hand to the AI and what you keep), Describing (putting it well), Discerning (judging the answer), being Diligent (checking before you use it). You will meet them again in every part, with all four tools.

What to remember
  • Say clearly what you want.
  • Give the context that matters: who it is for, what it is for, how long it should be.
  • Correct and ask again without hesitating: the first answer is a draft.
  • Those three rules are the D of Describing. The other three Ds arrive in Part I.
← Your first conversation with ClaudeThe grand tour: your 4 tools →

The rest of the handbook covers Claude, Higgsfield, Claude Design and Claude Code, with 11 recipes and a 30-day programme.

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Sylvère Bamenou, author of the handbook
Written by Sylvère Bamenou, Cotonou

This handbook is not an expert's course: it is the roadmap of my own learning of these tools, written for the least technical among us.

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