2 First Spell in Five Minutes
3 First Spell in Five Minutes
Use this when you want a better AI-assisted software answer now, without reading the whole book.
3.1 Plain-English Map
| Grimoire word | Plain engineering meaning |
|---|---|
| Spell | Structured prompt template |
| Stack | Workflow made of prompt templates |
| Rune | High-force engineering term |
| Shadow | Failure mode |
| Seal | Stable digest for versioning and replay |
3.2 1. Pick the Task
Choose the closest field spell:
- Safe Refactoring for behavior-preserving code cleanup.
- Bug Diagnosis from Logs for incidents and uncertain failures.
- API Design for durable JSON surfaces.
- Migration Without Data Loss for live data changes.
- Test Generation for behavior-focused tests.
- Performance Tuning for measurement-led optimization.
- Jailbreak-Resilience Review for prompt-injection, leakage, and tool-boundary risk.
3.3 2. Pick the Cast Level
- Quick cast: role, objective, context, verification.
- Working cast: add constraints and output shape.
- Full ritual: use all eight limbs when the task touches data, production, security, release, or broad refactoring.
3.4 3. Copy the Template
Open the closest spell and copy the fenced template block. Fill the context with the exact artifact, invariant, constraints, output contract, verification command, and fallback behavior.
3.5 4. Run and Verify
Do not treat a fluent answer as success. Check the output against the contract you wrote. If the assistant cannot verify something, make it label that uncertainty instead of pretending.
3.6 5. Save Useful Results
When a spell works, save the prompt, model/tool surface, output, verification evidence, and any repair notes. That record is the beginning of a local prompt registry.