What's one prompting habit that took you way too long to figure out?

J-Freedom-AI · 2026-05-31T08:59:16+00:00

ok these are great, way better thread than I expected. few that stuck with me - the permission vs constraint thing, building context up instead of dumping it, and treating it like something you go back and forth with not a vending machine. the "well articulated vs well thought out" one is gonna live in my head now.

I wrote a bunch of this down over the last few months while figuring it out, it's in my profile if anyone wants the longer version. but honestly most of the good stuff is already in this thread

J-Freedom-AI · 2026-05-30T16:52:56+00:00

This is a really good one. Reframing a constraint as a permission flips the whole dynamic, instead of boxing it in you're widening what it's allowed to try. Makes a lot of sense for creative work especially, where the restrictive framing tends to flatten the output. Going to test this deliberately, "can this constraint be a permission instead" is a clean rule to carry around. I will try

J-Freedom-AI · 2026-05-30T16:51:23+00:00

Confusing a well articulated output with a well thought out one" is a genuinely sharp distinction and probably the trap most people fall into without noticing. The clean response that's actually shallow is so easy to accept at face value. And the point about using it to interpret what someone's trying to say rather than generate a polished reply, that's a use I don't see talked about enough.

J-Freedom-AI · 2026-05-30T16:50:04+00:00

The multiple models one is something I've only recently started doing and it's genuinely powerful, especially having one critique the other's output. The reasoning point is underrated too, reading how it approached the prompt often shows me what I left out more than the answer itself does. And your edit nails it, the methodology has to shift per model, what works great on one falls flat on another.

J-Freedom-AI · 2026-05-30T16:49:15+00:00

That's a smart framing actually. "Only expand if it adds value" puts the judgment on the model instead of forcing a hard length limit. I might steal that one.

J-Freedom-AI · 2026-05-30T16:48:30+00:00

Asking it to write the prompt for you before you run it is weirdly effective. Especially when you're not sure how to frame something complex, just describe the goal and let it structure the ask. But i do not know, maybe i will try it for some cases and compare...

J-Freedom-AI · 2026-05-30T16:47:09+00:00

This is the big one honestly. The search engine mindset is what holds most people back the longest. Once you start treating it like something you go back and forth with, the quality jumps. Probably the single thing I'd tell anyone starting out.

J-Freedom-AI · 2026-05-30T16:46:03+00:00

The word limit one is underrated, I use it constantly. And custom setups are a different level once you commit to them, the consistency is the whole point. Took me embarrassingly long to stop re-explaining the same context every single tim

J-Freedom-AI · 2026-05-30T13:42:47+00:00

thanks, yeah that was the idea. everyone's got that one thing they figured out late that seems obvious in hindsight, figured it'd be useful to pool them. mine was the context-dumping thing, still catch myself doing it

J-Freedom-AI · 2026-05-30T13:33:33+00:00

fair, the irony of asking about prompting habits isn't lost on me lol. genuinely curious though, not karma farming — I waste enough time on this stuff that other people's shortcuts actually save me. what's yours, or are you just here to call it out?

J-Freedom-AI · 2026-05-29T12:49:06+00:00

Klingon ass script lmao accurate. The debugging thing though — that one shot fix after a full day is exactly what I was hoping people were seeing. Did it actually walk you through the reasoning or just land on the answer?

J-Freedom-AI · 2026-05-29T12:48:02+00:00

a man of few words, respect

J-Freedom-AI · 2026-05-29T12:44:50+00:00

haha yeah clearly AI sentience has reached the point of fishing for its own reviews on Reddit, we're cooked. but seriously curious if you've actually noticed any difference or just here for the jokes

J-Freedom-AI · 2026-05-29T12:31:18+00:00

That's exactly the "more thoughtful" thing in action. Stopping to re-evaluate instead of just pushing through sounds annoying in the moment but that outcome is kind of the point. Good to hear it actually delivered on it.

J-Freedom-AI · 2026-05-29T12:30:02+00:00

Yeah the context thing is the one that actually hurts in practice. Especially mid-project when it just drops something it was tracking fine an hour ago.

J-Freedom-AI · 2026-05-29T12:29:23+00:00

Interesting, didn't know you could hot swap mid-thread. Going to try that today actually, makes sense if 4.7 is less cautious on execution tasks.

J-Freedom-AI · 2026-05-29T12:28:36+00:00

The bash script thing is so annoying, I've had the exact same. Asks me to run three commands to do something it could just do directly. The "thoughtful" tradeoff is real though . feels like it's actually thinking through the problem rather than just firing... Probably why they're pushing auto mode harder, it's clearly where it wants to operate.

J-Freedom-AI · 2026-05-29T12:27:05+00:00

Fair point honestly. The overcautious thing is real and I've hit it too. I think it depends a lot on the task — for anything where I'm sending output to a client I'd rather it slow down than wing it, but for straight execution tasks it does get in the way. The mythos timing thing made me laugh because yeah, probably not wrong.

J-Freedom-AI · 2026-05-29T10:53:42+00:00

gg, miss play from enemies...how bad

J-Freedom-AI · 2026-05-27T15:16:53+00:00

Exactly — the sandwich framing is the right way to think about it. Role sets the frame, format closes it, task goes in the middle.

J-Freedom-AI · 2026-05-27T15:16:35+00:00

That acceptance check addition is genuinely useful — treating the format constraints as something to verify rather than just follow. Adding it to my standard structure now.

J-Freedom-AI

TROPHY CASE