Home / Writing a request that works

Making a working request last and reusing it

A request that works is refined in small touches rather than started over from scratch, and then fixed into a reusable template where only the part that changes from one task to the next gets replaced.

A request that produces a good result deserves to be kept and adjusted, not rewritten from scratch on every new attempt. Starting from a blank page each time loses what was already working and delays the moment the request becomes reliable.

Adjusting in small touches

When a response drifts slightly from what was expected, the effective reaction is to change a single part of the request, the instruction, the example or the format, then replay the same request on the same case. Comparing the two responses shows precisely what that change produced. Rewriting the whole request on every attempt mixes several changes at once, and makes it impossible to know which one fixed, or broke, the result.

Placing a long document right at the top

When a request comes with a long document, a contract, a report, a long list, its position in the text changes the quality of the response. According to Anthropic's documentation on long context, dated 2 September 2026, placing long documents and data at the top of the request, before the question, the instructions and the examples, improves performance across the board on all models. This simple reflex, pasting the document right at the start rather than at the end, applies just as well to a contract pasted once as to several files delimited by clear tags.

Fixing a request into a reusable template

Here is what a request fixed into a template looks like. Everything is fixed, except what sits between double braces:

Tu prépares un compte rendu pour le pôle {{POLE}}.
Résume le texte ci-dessous en cinq points, un par ligne, sans introduction.
Garde les montants et les dates tels quels.

Texte à résumer :
{{TEXTE}}

For the next task, two replacements are enough, and the four lines of instruction no longer need renegotiating.

Once a request has been adjusted until it regularly produces a good result, fixing it into a template avoids rewriting it for every similar task. The technique consists of replacing the part that changes from one task to the next, a client's name, a date, a text to process, with a marker written between double braces, and keeping the rest of the request fixed. The same template then serves for twenty different tasks, all that is needed is to replace what sits between the braces before each send. The same reflex for precision applies to a summary, by naming the expected length and angle rather than letting Claude choose, and to a request in several languages, by supplying your own list of terms you want translated one particular way rather than another.