10.5 — Your "Start Here" Prompt Library | AI for Real Life

Ten prompts you keep using. Saved by name. Surfaced in a couple of clicks.

You've collected dozens of prompts across this course. Sunday Reset, Edit-Don't-Write, Source Triage, the Brain Dump, the Voice Profile interview, the Pre-Exam runway alarm, the Cover Letter triage, the Resume bullet upgrader. Most of them are buried somewhere: copied into a notes app, starred inside a chat, or living rent-free in your head as "the prompt that worked that one time."

The "Start Here" library fixes that. Ten prompts. Named. Saved as starter prompts inside your Coach Cowork Project (and a few inside your Personal Cowork Project). Surfaceable in a couple of clicks the next time you need them. Quick setup; you keep using it for the rest of school.

Why ten, not twenty

Past about ten saved prompts, the library stops being a library and starts being a graveyard. You forget which one is which, you save eight near-duplicates, and you stop opening it. Ten is the size that keeps the library browseable. If you have more than ten favorites, force a ranking.

🪣

The two homes for saved prompts

Coach Cowork Project: for prompts about school work (study, writing, research). About 7 of your 10 will live here. Personal Cowork Project: for prompts about life logistics, decisions, and the brain-dump. About 3 of your 10. Don't put life prompts in your Coach; the Coach has the wrong standing brief for them.

🏷️

Naming convention: three words, verb-first

Pattern: "[Verb] · [Object] · [Constraint]." Examples: "Outline · 5-paragraph essay · 3 angles," "Audit · my draft · voice scrub," "Triage · my brain · 4 buckets." Verb-first names sort better and read better when you're scanning. Don't name them in the third person ("the cover letter prompt"). Name them in the imperative.

Set up the Personal Cowork Project: the third Cowork Project in your dashboard.

You already have the Coach (M7, re-tuned in 10.3). You have the Applications Cowork Project (M6.2, used during application season). The third Cowork Project, Student Life · Personal, is a small companion Cowork Project for the prompts that don't belong inside Coach. It's the smallest of the three and stays small on purpose.

Personal Cowork Project · setup spec

NEW PROJECT NAME: Student Life · Personal (or whatever short name you'll recognize in your sidebar) KNOWLEDGE FILES (3): 1. Personal AI Policy (same file as Coach; copy, don't link) 2. A simple "About me" doc · 1 page, plain prose: • year + school + major • 3-5 things about your daily/weekly shape • 2-3 sentences about how you make decisions 3. (Optional) Your active calendar export, refreshed each term CUSTOM INSTRUCTIONS: Short version of the Coach standing brief, but reframed for life not school. Use this template: You are my personal-life assistant. I'm a [year] at [school] studying [major]. You handle the non-academic stuff for me: weekly logistics, dorm/health/money admin, brain dumps, decision triage, the occasional travel plan. Standing orders: 1. Be direct. Match my tone (see About me). No emoji unless I use one first. 2. Default to short numbered output. Mirror my length. 3. Verify habits: if you mention a date / cost / rule / policy, tag it [INFERRED, verify] if you're not pulling from a context file. 4. Hard line: you're a thinking tool, not a decider. For any "should I" question, ask me clarifying questions one at a time, then end with "the question only I can answer is __." Then stop. 5. Privacy: don't store info from one chat into a context file unless I explicitly say "save this." This Project is NOT for academic work; that's my Coach Project. If I ask you about schoolwork, redirect me there.

Why a separate Cowork Project instead of one big mega-Coach

From M7.4's "when NOT to use the Coach" lesson: Coach has a standing brief tuned for academic work, and pulling life logistics through it makes the output weirder for both. Two small Cowork Projects with two clean briefs beat one big Cowork Project that tries to do everything.

Pick your 10: the candidate list.

Here's the menu of the most-keep-using prompts across the course. Pick 10. Most students land on a similar shape: ~7 from Coach (study + writing + research) and ~3 from Personal (logistics + decisions). Use your Panel 1 pain map as the filter. If a prompt doesn't address one of your three pains, don't save it; you don't need it as a starter.

The candidate menu: pick 10 total

Coach · Outline · 5-paragraph essay · 3 angles (M4.3 brainstorm/outline workflow: the green-zone start)
Coach · Audit · my draft · voice scrub (M4.5 + M4.6:the Edit-Don't-Write + AI-pattern scrub combined)
Coach · Quiz me · active recall (M3.3:flashcards / MCQs / short-answer triple)
Coach · Explain back · the dumb question (M3.4 Explain-It-Back: the highest-leverage move in the course)
Coach · Build study stack · midterm in N days (M3.5:the 4-Day/2-Day/Day-Of stack)
Coach · Triage citations · [HIGH/MED/LOW] confidence tag (M5.2:fail-fast on fake sources)
Coach · Map this PDF · structural skim (M5.3:the speed-read prompt for dense readings)
Coach · Spar with me · skeptical professor (M5.5:the offensive research move)
Coach · Translate this jargon · into how I actually speak (M5.3 follow-up: for textbook-y readings)
Apps · Tailor my resume · for [role] (M6.5:keep this in Applications Cowork Project, not Coach)
Apps · Brain-dump the personal statement · 4-phase (M6.3:Applications Cowork Project)
Apps · Mock interview · behavioral STAR (M6.6:Applications Cowork Project, voice-friendly)
Personal · Triage my brain · 4 buckets (M8.5:the brain-dump-to-action-list)
Personal · Pick between · ranked criteria (M8.5:small academic decisions, decision-fatigue panel)
Personal · Big call · ask me 5 questions first (M8.6:the thinking-tool prompt)
Personal · Plan my week · template (M8.2:backup if you ever skip Sunday Reset)
Personal · Translate this paperwork · plain English (M8.4 / dorm-roommate / health-admin bonus pages: bills, leases, EOBs)

The "save it as a starter prompt" mechanic

Inside a Cowork Project, Claude lets you save reusable prompts that appear on the right side of the chat input:usually as a "starter prompts" or "saved prompts" panel. Naming differs across UI updates; the feature is the thing where, when you open a new chat in this Cowork Project, the prompt is one click away instead of "where did I save that, again?" If you can't find the feature, search Anthropic's docs (docs.claude.com) for "starter prompts" or "saved prompts":exact name moves around but the feature stays.

Workbook · your 10-Prompt Library panel.

Lock in your 10. For each, write the verb-first name + which Cowork Project it lives in + the source lesson (so future-you can find the full prompt body). The actual prompt text gets saved inside Claude as a starter prompt: this panel is the index, not the prompts themselves. Filled out, this index is your library: keep it as a markdown doc, a screenshot, or a note pinned in your phone.

Workbook · Panel 4 of 5

Your 10-Prompt "Start Here" Library

Index your 10. Lock the names so future-you knows what's saved.

My 10 saved starter prompts 1. ____________________ · Cowork Project: ________ · Source: M___ 2. ____________________ · Cowork Project: ________ · Source: M___ 3. ____________________ · Cowork Project: ________ · Source: M___ 4. ____________________ · Cowork Project: ________ · Source: M___ 5. ____________________ · Cowork Project: ________ · Source: M___ 6. ____________________ · Cowork Project: ________ · Source: M___ 7. ____________________ · Cowork Project: ________ · Source: M___ 8. ____________________ · Cowork Project: ________ · Source: M___ 9. ____________________ · Cowork Project: ________ · Source: M___ 10. ____________________ · Cowork Project: ________ · Source: M___

My split: how many in each Cowork Project Coach: ___ · Applications: ___ · Personal: ___ · (should sum to 10)

Two prompts I considered but cut (and why) Cut: __________:because: __________________________ Cut: __________:because: __________________________

My library refresh date: when am I going to revisit this list and re-rank? Date: ____________ (suggested: end-of-semester, alongside the M7.4 Coach refresh)

If you saved fewer than 10, that's fine: the floor is "every prompt you actually use," not "exactly 10." Forced 10 leads to graveyard prompts. Six real ones beats ten dead ones.

📸 Screenshot once filled: piece 4 of your keepsake. This panel is your library; keep it where you'll find it.

The dashboard is built. Three Cowork Projects, three tasks, ten prompts.

Stop and notice what just happened. As of right now you have:

Your Student Dashboard · current state

Coach Cowork Project: re-tuned with four staple files + refreshed standing brief (Lesson 10.3)
Applications Cowork Project: exists from M6.2; lit up during application season (no work needed in M10)
Personal Cowork Project: newly set up with About-me + AI Policy + life-version standing brief (Lesson 10.5)
Slot 1 · Sunday Reset: wired, Sun 6pm (Lesson 10.4)
Slot 2 · Pre-Exam Watch: wired to your highest-friction class (Lesson 10.4)
Slot 3 · one of the variants (or empty): your call (Lesson 10.4)
"Start Here" prompt library: 10 prompts saved across Coach + Personal (this lesson)

Honest Work Code · all 3 rules, applied to a complete dashboard

Rule 1 · You stay the author. The library is named in your shorthand, the brief is in your voice, the three slots match your pain map. The dashboard is yours; nobody else could use it as-is. Rule 2 · Your work survives scrutiny. Every piece is documented in the workbook panels; if anyone ever asked you to explain what AI does for you in school, you have receipts. Rule 3 · Respect the rules of the room. Every saved prompt and every scheduled task ends at the building's door; nothing in the library is something you'd run during an exam, an interview, or any closed-environment evaluation. The dashboard supports preparation, not performance-time crutches.

Up next: 10.6: Test Drive Week + Graduation

The dashboard exists. Now we put it through a real week. 10.6 is light scaffold: three task-based check-ins (Day 1, Day 4, Day 7) where you confirm the system is firing, notice what's working vs. friction, and decide what survives the semester. The closing screen is the graduation: course-level integrity recap, the calendar reminders that turn the dashboard into a year-round tool, and the close.

Continue to 10.6:Test Drive + Graduation →