Advanced Prompting Patterns

Quick Start

Use these when Claude's first response feels safe/generic:

1. Challenge - "Grill me on these changes"
2. Verify - "Prove to me this works"
3. Reset - "Scrap this and implement the elegant solution"

Pattern Categories

Challenge Prompts

Force Claude to critique rather than accept:

• "Grill me on these changes" - Get pushback on your approach
• "What would a 10x engineer do differently" - Surface better patterns
• "Find 3 ways this could fail" - Adversarial review

Verification Prompts

Demand evidence over assertions:

• "Prove to me this works" - Request test output, diffs
• "Show me the before/after" - Force concrete comparison
• "Walk through this line by line" - Prevent hand-waving

Reset Prompts

Break out of local optima:

• "Scrap this and implement the elegant solution" - Fresh approach
• "You're overcomplicating this" - Simplification pressure
• "What's the 80/20 version" - Cut scope ruthlessly

When to Use

Situation	Prompt Pattern
Code review feels shallow	Challenge prompts
Implementation seems fragile	Verification prompts
Solution feels hacky	Reset prompts
Claude is agreeing too readily	"Push back on this"

Anti-Patterns

• Don't use reset prompts mid-implementation (waste tokens)
• Challenge prompts need context (share the code first)
• Verification prompts pointless for trivial changes

References

• challenge-prompts.md - Critique and adversarial review
• verification-prompts.md - Evidence and proof patterns
• reset-prompts.md - Fresh starts and simplification