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Write a prompt-first plan when the team says "just upgrade"

  • For Software developers
  • You practice Catching mistakes and made-up facts
  • Time about 5 minutes
  • Level Intermediate

About this exercise

A teammate says "just upgrade Pedalbot to Summit-L." Using the failure breakdown, write a plan as a checklist of exactly 4 lines in this order, each starting "- [ ]": fix the prompt, load the missing pricing sheet, correct the bad test cases, then rerun all 200 cases. Each of the first three lines ends with how many failures it fixes, like "(fixes 22 of 40)". The rerun line gives the failures left and the new score, like "expect 6 left, 194/200 = 97%". Then a last line "Upgrade only if: ..." using the 96% bar. Plain text, under 120 words.

Common mistakes when you ask AI for this

  • Agreeing to upgrade. The AI takes the lead's word and recommends the bigger model. Try: Say: "Fix the causes you can see in the failures before changing the model."
  • Missing counts. The AI lists steps without saying how many failures each fixes. Try: Add: "End each of the first three lines with (fixes N of 40)."
  • No new score. The AI never works out what the rerun should score. Try: Add: "Rerun line: expect 6 left, 194/200 = 97%."
  • No upgrade trigger. The AI ends with a vague 'consider upgrading later'. Try: Add: "Last line: Upgrade only if the rerun has more than 8 failures."
  • A long plan. The AI writes sections, bold headings and extra bullets. Try: Say: "Exactly 4 checklist lines plus one last line, plain text."

What a strong prompt includes

  • Asks for a checklist
  • Fixes the prompt first
  • Counts failures per step
  • Sets the upgrade trigger
  • Asks for plain text

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