Describe the Entire Feature in Plain English Before Claude Starts Building

The fastest way to get the wrong output is to give Claude a half-formed prompt and let it start building immediately. The more context Claude has from the start, the better its first pass.

Instead of a terse one-liner, describe the feature fully before any code is written:

I want a login form with email/password fields, inline validation, a "forgot password" 
link, and a loading state on the submit button. It should use the existing Button and 
Input components and match the current design system. Don't start building yet, 
just confirm your understanding.

Asking Claude to confirm its understanding before it starts adds one extra message but saves multiple rounds of corrections. Claude builds a mental model of what you actually want, flags ambiguities early, and produces much tighter output for multi-component features.

The "don't start building yet" instruction is the key part. It forces a planning beat before execution begins.

Plain English context upfront beats terse instructions every time.

via @scottshapiro__