// Getting better results with Claude
Prompt best practices
Nine simple habits to phrase your requests, structure your context with Projects, and get results you can use right away.
The basic principle
Think of Claude as a brilliant but new colleague: it knows nothing about your habits, your standards or your context. The more precisely you explain what you want, the better the result. Simple test: show your request to a colleague who doesn't know the topic — if they would be lost, Claude will be too.
Phrasing your request
1
Brief Claude in five lines
State the goal, the context, the expected effort and a success criterion ("It's done when…"). The success criterion tells Claude when to stop and gives you a way to check the result.
Less effective
Summarize this budget for me.More effective
Summarize this budget for Thursday's leadership committee. I don't know the variance details well. Keep it to one page. It's done when the three biggest variances are quantified and explained in one sentence each.2
Explain the why, not just the prohibition
An instruction with its reason is applied better, because Claude generalizes from the explanation. Also say what to do rather than what to avoid.
Less effective
Never use ellipses.More effective
Your response will be read aloud by a text-to-speech engine, so don't use ellipses — it wouldn't know how to pronounce them.Source: Prompting best practices, "Add context to improve performance" section.
3
Ask for the action or the deliverable, not just advice
If you want Claude to change or produce something, say so explicitly. A question like "do you have suggestions?" gets suggestions; an instruction gets the change.
Claude will only suggest
Can you suggest improvements to this table?Claude will make the changes
Turn this analysis into a 10-slide presentation, with one key message per slide.Making the result reliable
4
Have Claude verify its work
Add a check instruction with precise criteria:
Before you finish, verify your answer against [criteria]. This step reliably catches errors, especially for calculations and code. You can also ask Claude to list the assumptions it made — a practical tip that makes your review easier.
Source: Prompting best practices, "Ask Claude to self-check". The assumptions request comes from the article cited at the bottom of this page.
5
Asking questions: when it helps
By default, Claude looks for the most likely action and proceeds. Invite it to ask you questions before starting only when the request is ambiguous or the action is hard to undo (sending, deleting, bulk changes). Example:
Before you start, ask me whatever questions you need to get this right.
Structuring your context with Projects
6
A Project for recurring work
A Project is a workspace with its own chat history and knowledge base. You upload your reference files (templates, style guides, data) and define project instructions that apply to every conversation in the project. Projects provide persistent context, loaded in every conversation. For a procedure that should only trigger when relevant, use a Skill instead.
Source: What are projects? (Claude Help Center). Project instructions are available on a paid plan.
7
Example project instructions
Project instructions — monthly reporting
You help me prepare the finance team's monthly reporting. Readers are non-specialist directors: write short sentences and always quantify variances (amount and percentage). Use the presentation template uploaded in the project files. It's done when a reader understands the essentials in under two minutes.8
Custom instructions: useful and motivated
Your profile instructions apply to all your conversations (Settings → "Your Claude" → Instructions). Keep what is specific to you and that Claude can't guess (role, preferred format, vocabulary), and give the reason for each rule. Avoid repeating what Claude already does well by default. Keep task-specific guidance for project instructions.
Source: Understanding Claude's personalization features. The tip "keep only what Claude can't guess" is a practical recommendation from the article cited at the bottom of this page.
9
Projects, instructions or Skills: which one?
Custom instructions: your general preferences, everywhere. Project: the persistent context for a specific piece of work. Skill: a specialized procedure, loaded only when relevant. See the dedicated concept in the Skills training.
Going further
- 📖 Prompting best practices — official Anthropic guide
- 📁 What are projects? — Claude Help Center
- ⚡ What are skills? — Claude Help Center
- 🎓 Claude 101 — free Anthropic course
Source of inspiration
Several of these tips are inspired by the article "Comment utiliser Claude : 5 conseils pour les débutants" (in French) by Onur Karapinar ("Apprendre l'IA" newsletter, November 4, 2026). Points checked against the official documentation are sourced above; the others are the author's practical recommendations.