Prompt library / 01
Master Starter Prompt
Paste this into the very first message of a brand-new AI project. It sets the ground rules before any work starts — who does what, what needs your approval, and how mistakes get caught.
What it actually does ▾
- Interviews you first. The AI asks about your project and what it must never do without asking, then sets itself up from your answers instead of guessing.
- Puts the right model on the right job. The expensive model plans and checks; the cheap model does the grunt work. On the last project, ignoring this quietly burned about $1,400 in ten weeks.
- Runs work in parallel. Several AI workers get separate, non-overlapping jobs at once instead of one doing everything in a line.
- Splits planning from doing. Two plain markdown files pass the job back and forth. Whatever builds the thing never gets to approve its own work.
- Draws a line at what needs you. Three lanes: ship it, stop and ask, or never without a human. Anything unclear defaults to asking.
- Demands proof, not adjectives. "Done" has to come with real pasted output, plus a test designed to fail — to prove the checks even work.
- Builds the safety net first. Backups, branch protection, and a kill switch go in before the AI gets any autonomy.
The prompt
Distill it into the project's CLAUDE.md (under ~90 lines) — don't paste it in whole,
or the boot tax you're avoiding comes right back.