Reality Lab · 9 MIN · Use
Add the examples that fix it
You keep describing the format you want and keep not getting it. Stop describing — show two examples, and watch the output snap into shape.
A support lead wants incoming emails turned into short, consistent triage notes: one line of summary, a priority, and a next action. They’ve written three increasingly detailed paragraphs of instructions. The model still varies the wording, sometimes adds a greeting, sometimes writes a paragraph. More instructions aren’t helping.
Your task: Replace some of the instructions with two worked examples that show exactly the input-to-output shape you want.
"Read each support email and summarise it. Make it short. Include how urgent it is and what we should do next. Be consistent and don’t add greetings or sign-offs. Use a professional tone but keep it brief. Format it nicely."
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Check your own work
There's no grade here — checking against these is the exercise. Compare each point to what you wrote.
- There are at least two examples, each showing input → the exact output you want.One example is a hint; two establish a pattern the model can generalise. Showing the target beats describing it, because the model matches shape better than it follows adjectives.
- The examples model the edge cases you care about — e.g. one urgent, one routine.Examples teach by coverage. If both are easy, the model won’t know what to do with the hard one. A skewed set biases every output toward it.
- The examples are consistent with each other in structure and wording.The model copies whatever is consistent. If your two examples disagree on format, you’ve taught it that format is optional.
- You kept the example set short and didn’t bury the real task.Examples cost context. Two sharp ones do more than six sprawling ones, and leave room for the actual email you’re processing.
Reveal a worked approach
A version that works: “Turn each support email into a triage note in this exact form.\n\nEXAMPLE 1\nEmail: ‘Site’s been down for our whole team since 9am, we can’t invoice clients.’\nNote: Summary: Full outage blocking a customer’s billing. | Priority: High | Next: Page on-call, reply with ETA.\n\nEXAMPLE 2\nEmail: ‘Wondering if you’ll ever add dark mode?’\nNote: Summary: Feature request for dark mode. | Priority: Low | Next: Log to backlog, send acknowledgement.\n\nNow do the same for the email below.”
Notice the shift: almost none of the original adjectives survived. “Short,” “consistent,” “professional,” and “format it nicely” were all replaced by two examples that simply are short, consistent, and formatted — so the model has a target to match instead of a mood to interpret.
The habit to carry: when instructions aren’t landing, stop adding words and add a worked example. And curate those examples like code — test what the model does at the edges they don’t cover.