Claude AI Prompts: Complete Guide to Mastering Claude (Anthropic)

Claude, developed by Anthropic, is one of the most powerful and nuanced AI models on the market. Renowned for its ability to follow complex instructions, advanced reasoning, and extended context window (up to 200K tokens), Claude excels at tasks that require precision, nuance, and deep understanding. Whether you are a writer, developer, marketer, or entrepreneur, Claude can transform your productivity — provided you know how to talk to it. This complete guide gives you the keys to get the best out of Claude: from basic prompts to advanced techniques like XML prompting, chain of thought, and system role. Each technique is illustrated with concrete examples, ready to copy-paste.

The prompt

Claude

You are an expert assistant. I will give you a task to accomplish.

<context> [DESCRIBE THE SITUATION, PROJECT, OR PROBLEM IN 2-3 SENTENCES] </context> <objective> [WHAT YOU EXPECT AS A RESULT] </objective> <constraints> - Length: [SHORT / MEDIUM / DETAILED] - Tone: [PROFESSIONAL / CONVERSATIONAL / TECHNICAL] - Format: [LIST, TABLE, STRUCTURED PARAGRAPHS, CODE] </constraints> <examples> [OPTIONAL: GIVE AN EXAMPLE OF THE EXPECTED RESULT] </examples>

Personalize this prompt with Léa

Answer 3 questions and Léa tailors the prompt to your situation.

Why it works

This prompt leverages Claude's specific strengths: XML tags (<context>, <objective>, <constraints>) that Claude natively interprets to structure its response, clear separation of instructions that reduces ambiguity, and the optional <examples> block enabling few-shot learning. Unlike generic prompts, this structure taps into Claude's architecture to produce precise results from the first iteration.

Expected result

Claude produces a structured response that exactly respects the specified constraints: the right tone, the right format, the right length. The result is directly usable without rewording, because the XML tags have guided the model to an unambiguous understanding of your request.

Variants by level

FAQ

What is the difference between Claude and ChatGPT for prompting?

Claude excels at following complex instructions, nuanced reasoning, and processing long documents (up to 200K tokens context). It natively interprets XML tags to structure exchanges. ChatGPT is often more creative in free generation and has a larger plugin ecosystem. For tasks that require precision and fidelity to instructions, Claude generally has the edge.

How to use XML tags with Claude?

XML tags are Claude's signature technique. Wrap each section of your prompt in descriptive tags: <context>, <instruction>, <format>, <examples>. Claude interprets them as semantic delimiters, which reduces ambiguity and improves response quality. You can also use custom tags like <persona>, <constraints>, or <criteria>.

Which Claude model to choose: Haiku, Sonnet, or Opus?

Haiku is the fastest and cheapest, ideal for simple tasks (classification, extraction). Sonnet offers the best quality-speed ratio for most use cases (writing, analysis, code). Opus is the most powerful for complex tasks requiring deep reasoning (strategy, research, long documents). Start with Sonnet, then upgrade if needed.

How to use this prompt

Copy the prompt with the button above.
Paste it into ChatGPT, Claude or your favorite AI assistant.
Replace the bracketed variables with your details, then refine the result.

About Prompt Guide

Prompt Guide is a free library of 2500+ ready-to-use prompts for ChatGPT, Claude and other AIs, with guides to learn prompting and tools to build and optimize your own prompts.

Prompt library Learn prompting Prompt builder Prompt optimizer

Already have a prompt?

Paste it into the Optimizer, AI improves it in 5 seconds: role, context, format. Free, no signup.

Open the Optimizer

More prompts to explore

Claude Prompt for Writing Product Sheets

Writing product sheets is a strategic exercise that combines commercial persuasion, SEO optimization, and technical precision. Each sheet must convince a potential buyer in seconds while meeting search engine requirements.

Claude Prompt to Create a Pitch Deck

Creating a compelling pitch deck is a strategic exercise that can determine the success of a fundraising, partnership, or product launch. Claude excels at structuring complex arguments and synthesizing business information into impactful messages.

Claude Prompt to Create a Presentation

Creating a compelling presentation requires much more than lining up bullet points on slides. You need to structure a narrative, prioritize information, adapt the tone to the audience, and produce visually thoughtful content. Claude excels at this task because it can simultaneously act as a communication strategist, a copywriter, and a content designer. By providing it with a well-crafted prompt, you get a complete presentation with a coherent narrative structure, catchy titles, speaker notes, and visual suggestions. Whether you're preparing an investor pitch, internal training, a conference, or a simple team meeting, Claude adjusts the level of detail, vocabulary, and format to your context. The major advantage is time savings: instead of starting from a blank page, you begin with a solid foundation that you refine according to your needs. Claude can also generate content in various usable formats — structured Markdown, a detailed slide-by-slide plan, or even HTML code for tools like Reveal.js. This approach transforms presentation creation from a time-consuming chore into an assisted creative process where you focus on the message rather than formatting.

DALL-E Prompt for Creating a Loyalty Program

DALL-E, the AI image generator developed by OpenAI, is a powerful tool for designing visual elements of a loyalty program.

DALL-E Prompt for Writing a Cover Letter

DALL-E, OpenAI's image generation tool, can play an unexpected yet powerful role in writing a cover letter. Although DALL-E does not write...

DALL-E Prompt to Generate a Study Plan

DALL-E, OpenAI's image generation model, can be creatively used to produce visual and engaging study plans. Rather than t

Go further

How to prompt Claude

The complete guide: techniques, examples and best practices.

Free prompt library

2500+ prompts sorted by category, one-click copy.

Get new prompts every week

Join our newsletter.