Most prompts do not fail because the model is dumb. They fail because the prompt is vague — it leaves the model to guess the role, the format, and the edge cases, and it guesses differently every time. The fix is not a magic phrase. It is treating a prompt like a reusable spec, not a one-off question. Here is the practical version.
1. Stop asking questions. Start writing specs.
Write a tweet about our launch is a question. A spec tells the model who it is, what to do, what it is working with, and exactly what good output looks like. Same model, completely different reliability. A spec you can paste again next week and get the same quality is worth ten clever one-off prompts.
2. A framework that holds up
Role · Task · Context · Format · Constraints · Examples.
