Role and Task

Two of the five building blocks do the heaviest lifting: Role and Task.

Role tells the AI who to be. "You are an experienced real estate copywriter." This single line sets the vocabulary, depth, and tone automatically — a prompt with a role reads completely differently from one without.

Task states exactly what you want done. "Write a listing description for a two-bedroom apartment." Be direct and concrete about the actual deliverable.

A Concrete Example

"You are a patient tutor explaining to a 12-year-old. Explain how the internet works in under 100 words." The role ("patient tutor," "to a 12-year-old") controls the tone and reading level, while the task ("explain how the internet works") and constraint ("under 100 words") control what and how much. Swap the role to "You are a network engineer writing for other engineers" and the exact same task produces a totally different answer.

Set who the AI is, then tell it exactly what to do.