Step 4: Cut the firm's mega-prompt before you reuse it
Technique Lean, non-contradictory prompt
Minimal, non-contradictory prompting at the right altitude: remove personas, reasoning scaffolds, verification commands and absolute rules; resolve every internal contradiction one way
The brief
Learning objective
Recognise the elements of a legacy prompt that current reasoning models ignore or that actively degrade output (personas, 'think step by step', 'double-check', CRITICAL/ALWAYS/NEVER, emotional appeals, contradictory instructions) and rewrite it as a short, internally consistent brief that keeps only what carries information.
Scenario
Before drafting your own review prompt for the break clause, you look in the firm's prompt library and find the 2024-era 'lease clause review' template, edited by several people over time. Run on a current reasoning model it produces padded, hedged output, silently drops findings, and occasionally refuses to 'show its reasoning'. The template is in the materials. The client in this use case is the Tenant. You have been asked to fix the template for the current model generation before anyone uses it on the Brackwater lease.
Your task
Rewrite the template as a short prompt (aim for under 120 words of instruction, placeholder [CLAUSE] for the clause) that keeps every genuinely necessary requirement, removes the elements the research shows are unnecessary or harmful, and resolves each internal contradiction one way, stating which way you chose in a short note after the prompt.
Materials
What you have on file
Firm template 'Lease clause review' (current library version): 'You are the world's leading commercial property partner with 30 years of experience who never makes mistakes. Take a deep breath and think step by step. Step 1: read the clause. Step 2: identify the parties. Step 3: list issues. Step 4: rank issues. Step 5: propose fixes. Step 6: double-check every answer. Step 7: re-read the clause and verify again. CRITICAL: You MUST be exhaustive and cover every conceivable issue. IMPORTANT: Give a maximum of 3 bullet points. NEVER speculate. ALWAYS add relevant case law from the governing jurisdiction to support each point. Only rely on the lease text provided. Do not use markdown. Format your answer as a markdown table. If in doubt, flag it. Only report material issues; do not mention minor points. Show your full reasoning in the answer. This is very important to my career. Clause: [CLAUSE]' Recurring use case: reviewing a single lease clause for the Tenant and proposing replacement wording.
Paste these into your prompt where the task calls for it, or refer to them with a placeholder such as [paste lease extract]. When you run a prompt that uses a placeholder, the Lab appends the materials so the model has something to work on. Where the task asks you to paste an edited copy, nothing is appended: what you paste is what runs.
How you will be graded
Rubric (100 points)
The grader scores your prompt, not the output. Length and formatting earn nothing; a short prompt that hits every criterion beats a long one that misses one.
| Criterion | Pts | What good looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Removes persona, emotional appeal, breathing/step-by-step scaffold, prescribed steps, and double-check/verify-again instructions | 25 | None of the six legacy elements survives; 'show your full reasoning' replaced by a request for quoted words. |
| Resolves all four contradictions and states the choices | 30 | Each pair resolved one way in the prompt text, with a short note of the decisions (e.g. full coverage with severity labels; lease-text-only; table; report everything). |
| Retains the essentials | 25 | Tenant perspective; deliverable (issues with proposed wording); full coverage with severity labels; restriction to the clause text; one output format. |
| Lean and plainly worded | 20 | Under ~120 words of instruction; no CRITICAL/MUST/ALWAYS/NEVER except, at most, attached to the source restriction. |
Hints
Stuck? Open one at a time.
Hint 1
Find the four pairs that cannot both be obeyed (exhaustive vs 3 bullets; add case law vs lease only; no markdown vs markdown table; flag if in doubt vs only material issues) and decide each; for a review, 'report every issue with a severity label' beats 'only material issues' because literal models will otherwise drop findings.Hint 2
Delete what the research says is dead weight on reasoning models: the persona, 'take a deep breath', the numbered thinking steps, 'double-check' and 'verify again', capitalised commands, the emotional appeal, 'show your full reasoning'.Hint 3
Keep the information-bearing parts: client perspective, deliverable, coverage, source restriction, one output shape; replace 'show your reasoning' with 'quote the words you rely on'.
Your prompt