69. Prompt Enhancing Techniques

The lesson

The core idea: before you use an important prompt in a real chat session, you first have a conversation WITH the AI ABOUT the prompt. The AI acts as an expert prompt engineer, reviewing and improving your draft. Only the final enhanced prompt is used for real work - in a brand-new session.

Why this works: an LLM is excellent at spotting what is missing from a prompt - ambiguous instructions, missing context, no output format, an undefined audience. You get that review for free by simply asking for it. It is like having a circuit design reviewed by a colleague before you etch the board: the review conversation makes the final design better.

The technique has four parts, exactly as implemented in TPEE's 5-step Prompt Enhancing Workflow strip:

Part 1 - The Pre-Prompt. A short text placed BEFORE your prompt. It tells the AI: 'I am preparing a prompt that I will use later in a fresh chat session. Act as an expert prompt engineer: analyse my prompt, ask me questions, and help me improve it. Do NOT execute or answer the prompt itself.' Without this, the AI would simply try to answer your draft. The Pre-Prompt ends with two marker lines: '-----End Of Pre Prompt-----' and '-----Start of Prompt to Enhance-----'.

Part 2 - The Post-Prompt. A short text placed AFTER your prompt. It starts with the marker lines '-----End of Prompt to Enhance-----' and '-----Start Of Post-Prompt-----', then tells the AI how to run the enhancement conversation and where to save the result: 'When I tell you to SAVE, save the final enhanced prompt as a plain text file to the directory and file name I give you.' The marker lines work like start/end delimiters in a serial protocol frame - the AI always knows exactly where your prompt begins and ends.

Part 3 - The enhancement conversation. Combine Pre-Prompt + your prompt + Post-Prompt into one block (TPEE's COMBINE button does this to the clipboard in one click) and paste it into the AI chat. The AI will ask clarifying questions: What is the audience? Which output format? What constraints? Answer them honestly - every answer becomes specific text in the enhanced prompt. When you are satisfied, tell the AI to SAVE the enhanced prompt to your file (for example MyProject_Enhanced.txt next to your prompt file).

Part 4 - Verify and reuse in a FRESH session. Open the saved enhanced prompt, read it, and fix anything the AI misunderstood (TPEE's Enhanced Prompt Editor at step 5 does this). Then copy it and paste it into a brand-new chat session. The fresh session matters: the enhancement chat is full of drafts and meta-discussion that would pollute the real run. A clean context means the model sees ONLY the polished prompt.

What you end up with: the enhanced prompt usually spells out what your first draft left implicit - vague verbs become measurable instructions, missing context is written down, and the output format and audience are stated. How much the answers then improve is up to the model you paste it into; what TPEE controls is that the prompt you hand over is the reviewed one, and the enhanced prompt file is a reusable asset you keep.

When to use it: any prompt you will reuse many times, any high-stakes prompt (code generation for production, business documents, PRDs), or any prompt that keeps producing mediocre answers. For quick one-off questions the overhead is not worth it - just ask directly.

In TPEE: tick USE PROMPT ENHANCING WORKFLOW in the top panel and follow steps 2 to 5 - edit Pre-Prompt, edit Post-Prompt, COMBINE to clipboard, then open/verify/copy the enhanced prompt. Pre/Post-Prompts are saved next to your prompt file (_Pre_Pmpt.txt / _Post_Pmpt.txt) and auto-load next time. See User's Manual chapter 28 for full details.

An airline technical writer uses the enhancing workflow on a recurring maintenance-report prompt, combining the pre-prompt and post-prompt, saving the enhanced file, then running it in a fresh session.

A disability support coordinator enhances a high-stakes care-plan prompt by letting the model ask about audience and format, then pasting the polished version into a new chat.

A paralegal adds a pre-prompt and post-prompt around a case-summary draft, answers the model clarifying questions, and saves the enhanced prompt for later matters.

A software engineer enhances a production code-generation prompt, fixes one misunderstood line in the enhanced file, then opens a clean session to run it.

A financial analyst has the model review a quarterly-commentary prompt first, states the audience and constraints, then uses only the enhanced version in a fresh session.

A product manager applies the enhancing workflow to a requirements prompt, saving the reviewed text as a reusable file before drafting the document.

A clinical educator enhances a patient-education prompt by answering the model questions on reading level, then verifies the file before reuse.

An agronomist enhances a seasonal-advice prompt that will be reused many times, saving the improved version beside the original draft.

A grants officer enhances a funding-application prompt, checks the saved file, and pastes the reviewed prompt into a new session for the actual draft.

A manufacturing engineer enhances a safety-checklist prompt, giving the model the audience and format, then opens a fresh session with the polished text.

Check yourself