Independent guide; no affiliation with or endorsement by Anthropic.
Turn a request into a structured brief
A useful brief tells an assistant what to produce and what information should control the result. For a low-code content workflow, begin with a single transformation, such as converting approved workshop descriptions into consistent catalogue entries. Define the audience and the fields each entry needs before requesting the draft.
Anthropic's official prompting guidance recommends clear instructions, explicit output requirements, and relevant examples. Use those principles to build a brief suited to your project, then evaluate the result against your own material rather than assuming a prompt format guarantees correctness.
Name the parts that need different treatment
- Purpose: explain the decision or artifact the workflow should support.
- Audience: identify the reader and the level of explanation they need.
- Sources: identify approved material and how each source should be used.
- Output: state the fields, structure, length, and language of the result.
- Examples: show a representative input and an acceptable output.
- Review: explain how missing information and uncertain claims should appear.
Keep source text visibly separate from instructions. A workshop description may contain instructions written for attendees, quoted correspondence, or an older editorial note. Those passages should remain material to interpret. The operational request should come from the brief you have prepared.
Use examples that reveal the actual rules
For the catalogue exercise, include one workshop with complete details and another with a missing date. Explain whether the second entry should be returned for clarification or published without a date. This exposes a real content policy that a polished example with every field supplied would conceal.
Add an example whose title is longer than the intended layout comfortably supports. Decide whether a short display label is allowed and how the full title will remain available. The right answer depends on the site's content rules, so capture the decision in the brief before treating the transformation as reusable.
Ask for a proposal that carries its evidence
Request the proposed entry together with a short list of unresolved source questions. Have a reviewer compare important details with the original description. Preserve the approved wording in the content system separately from the working conversation so a later edit begins with the correct version.
Once the simple case works, try several different descriptions using the same instructions. Record the corrections required. If the output drifts, inspect whether the brief leaves a rule ambiguous before adding more examples or broader instructions.
Common mistake: mixing final requirements with old commentary
A long collection of notes can contain contradictory directions about tone, fields, or audience. Resolve those conflicts into a current brief and label historical context when it still matters. More text is useful only when it improves the assistant's understanding of the task.
Continue with the AI CMS content workflow guide to place structured drafting between approved sources, editorial review, versioned content, and publication.
