Index
TUTOR WITH THEFOCUS.AI
Copy this prompt into Claude, ChatGPT, or any external AI assistant. It points the assistant to the course instructions and links it to your student profile to track your progress and customize observations.
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02 — Prompting
Now that you can run a model locally, let’s learn how to talk to it effectively.
These three “spells” (techniques) work on any AI model — local or cloud. They’re simple to learn, but they profoundly change the quality of what you get back.
The Three Spells
| Spell | What It Does | When To Use It |
|---|---|---|
| #1: Clarifying Questions | Makes the model ask what you mean before it answers | Whenever you’re not 100% sure the model understands the task |
| #2: Simplest Thing (YAGNI) | Tells the model to stop over-complicating things | When the model proposes complex solutions to simple problems |
| #3: One-Shot Prompts | Makes your work reproducible by putting everything in one self-contained prompt | When you need to iterate, version-control, or share your prompts |
Why These Matter
Local models are generally less capable than GPT-4 or Claude. These spells close the gap. They give a weaker model the structure it needs to produce reliable, high-quality output.
They also teach you something fundamental about working with AI: the quality of your output depends on the quality of your communication. Garbage in, garbage out applies to humans too.