Squeeze My Prompt
All tasks

I want to automate a task.

Every question is optional. The ones marked Recommended matter most.

For example: Every Monday I copy sales rows from 3 CSV files into one sheet and total by region.

For example: CSV files with columns date, region, amount; sample rows below.

For example: One Excel file, a tab per region, saved to my Desktop.

For example: With the 3 sample files, the North tab totals $12,400.

For example: On my Windows laptop; I'll double-click it each Monday.

For example: Never change the original CSV files.

For example: If a file is missing, skip it and list it in a note.

For example: Reads my Gmail. Python is fine. Keep keys out of the code.

For example: Never run a script. Give me exact steps.

For example: About 5,000 rows; weekly.

More detail, if you have it

How should the AI start?
Saved on this device only

How to brief an AI to automate a task

Use this form when you do the same steps by hand every day or week and want a script or automation to do them: combining files, renaming things, moving data. Small scripts and automation were the most common kind of project in a 2026 survey of 162 people who build with AI, at 62.3%.

  • The task. OpenAI’s Codex prompting guide says a good prompt names the behavior you want, and Replit advises outlining the flow before you prompt.
  • What goes in. A small sample shows the AI the real shape of your data. In the same survey, people who are not developers were less likely than professionals to say they give the AI detailed context such as data and examples.
  • What comes out. Say what the result is and where it goes. Replit’s guide asks for output formats.
  • How you’ll know it worked. Cursor’s guide recommends writing tests from expected input and output pairs, and Anthropic’s guide to Claude Code says work reported as done often falls short when the AI had no way to check it.
  • Where and when it runs. Codex’s guide asks prompts to preserve important constraints; the machine it runs on and what starts it are constraints the AI cannot see.

“Things it must never do” is optional but worth opening if the script touches files you care about.

A worked example

Someone combines three sales files every Monday. The form composes:

I want to automate this: Every Monday I copy sales rows from 3 CSV files into one sheet and total by region.

<context>
Where it runs and what starts it: On my Windows laptop; I'll double-click it each Monday.
</context>

<source_material>
What it starts with, with a sample: CSV files with columns date, region, amount; sample rows below.
</source_material>

<task>
It should produce: One Excel file, a tab per region, saved to my Desktop.
Done means: With the 3 sample files, the North tab totals $12,400.
Write the script or automation described here.
</task>

<constraints>
It must never: Never change the original CSV files.
Keep passwords and keys out of the code.
</constraints>

Plan first. List any assumptions rather than guessing. If the information here is not enough to answer well, say so and tell me what you would need. If something missing would materially change the result, ask me up to 3 short questions first. Otherwise proceed and state your assumptions.

What the form adds for you

It asks the AI to keep passwords and keys out of the code, because a review of reports on AI-assisted coding lists hardcoded secrets among the flaws people found, and it asks for a plan before any code.