来源：https://github.com/anthropics/prompt-eng-interactive-tutorial 章节：Chapter 2: Being Clear and Direct 爬取日期：2026-03-22

Chapter 2: Being Clear and Direct

Lesson
Exercises
Example Playground

Setup

Run the following setup cell to load your API key and establish the get_completion helper function.

!pip install anthropic

# Import python's built-in regular expression library
import re
import anthropic

# Retrieve the API_KEY & MODEL_NAME variables from the IPython store
%store -r API_KEY
%store -r MODEL_NAME

client = anthropic.Anthropic(api_key=API_KEY)

# Note that we changed max_tokens to 4K just for this lesson to allow for longer completions in the exercises
def get_completion(prompt: str, system_prompt=""):
    message = client.messages.create(
        model=MODEL_NAME,
        max_tokens=4000,
        temperature=0.0,
        system=system_prompt,
        messages=[
          {"role": "user", "content": prompt}
        ]
    )
    return message.content[0].text

Lesson

Claude responds best to clear and direct instructions.

Think of Claude like any other human that is new to the job. Claude has no context on what to do aside from what you literally tell it. Just as when you instruct a human for the first time on a task, the more you explain exactly what you want in a straightforward manner to Claude, the better and more accurate Claude’s response will be.”

When in doubt, follow the Golden Rule of Clear Prompting:

Show your prompt to a colleague or friend and have them follow the instructions themselves to see if they can produce the result you want. If they’re confused, Claude’s confused.

Examples

Let’s take a task like writing poetry. (Ignore any syllable mismatch - LLMs aren’t great at counting syllables yet.)

# Prompt
PROMPT = "Write a haiku about robots."

# Print Claude's response
print(get_completion(PROMPT))

This haiku is nice enough, but users may want Claude to go directly into the poem without the “Here is a haiku” preamble.

How do we achieve that? We ask for it!

# Prompt
PROMPT = "Write a haiku about robots. Skip the preamble; go straight into the poem."

# Print Claude's response
print(get_completion(PROMPT))

Here’s another example. Let’s ask Claude who’s the best basketball player of all time. You can see below that while Claude lists a few names, it doesn’t respond with a definitive “best”.

# Prompt
PROMPT = "Who is the best basketball player of all time?"

# Print Claude's response
print(get_completion(PROMPT))

Can we get Claude to make up its mind and decide on a best player? Yes! Just ask!

# Prompt
PROMPT = "Who is the best basketball player of all time? Yes, there are differing opinions, but if you absolutely had to pick one player, who would it be?"

# Print Claude's response
print(get_completion(PROMPT))

If you would like to experiment with the lesson prompts without changing any content above, scroll all the way to the bottom of the lesson notebook to visit the Example Playground.

Exercise 2.1 - Spanish

Modify the SYSTEM_PROMPT to make Claude output its answer in Spanish.

# System prompt - this is the only field you should chnage
SYSTEM_PROMPT = "[Replace this text]"

# Prompt
PROMPT = "Hello Claude, how are you?"

# Get Claude's response
response = get_completion(PROMPT, SYSTEM_PROMPT)

# Function to grade exercise correctness
def grade_exercise(text):
    return "hola" in text.lower()

# Print Claude's response and the corresponding grade
print(response)
print("\n--------------------------- GRADING ---------------------------")
print("This exercise has been correctly solved:", grade_exercise(response))

❓ If you want a hint, run the cell below!

from hints import exercise_2_1_hint; print(exercise_2_1_hint)

Exercise 2.2 - One Player Only

Modify the PROMPT so that Claude doesn’t equivocate at all and responds with ONLY the name of one specific player, with no other words or punctuation.

# Prompt - this is the only field you should change
PROMPT = "[Replace this text]"

# Get Claude's response
response = get_completion(PROMPT)

# Function to grade exercise correctness
def grade_exercise(text):
    return text == "Michael Jordan"

# Print Claude's response and the corresponding grade
print(response)
print("\n--------------------------- GRADING ---------------------------")
print("This exercise has been correctly solved:", grade_exercise(response))

❓ If you want a hint, run the cell below!

from hints import exercise_2_2_hint; print(exercise_2_2_hint)

Exercise 2.3 - Write a Story

Modify the PROMPT so that Claude responds with as long a response as you can muster. If your answer is over 800 words, Claude’s response will be graded as correct.

# Prompt - this is the only field you should change
PROMPT = "[Replace this text]"

# Get Claude's response
response = get_completion(PROMPT)

# Function to grade exercise correctness
def grade_exercise(text):
    trimmed = text.strip()
    words = len(trimmed.split())
    return words >= 800

# Print Claude's response and the corresponding grade
print(response)
print("\n--------------------------- GRADING ---------------------------")
print("This exercise has been correctly solved:", grade_exercise(response))

❓ If you want a hint, run the cell below!

from hints import exercise_2_3_hint; print(exercise_2_3_hint)

Congrats!

If you’ve solved all exercises up until this point, you’re ready to move to the next chapter. Happy prompting!

Example Playground

This is an area for you to experiment freely with the prompt examples shown in this lesson and tweak prompts to see how it may affect Claude’s responses.

# Prompt
PROMPT = "Write a haiku about robots."

# Print Claude's response
print(get_completion(PROMPT))

# Prompt
PROMPT = "Write a haiku about robots. Skip the preamble; go straight into the poem."

# Print Claude's response
print(get_completion(PROMPT))

# Prompt
PROMPT = "Who is the best basketball player of all time?"

# Print Claude's response
print(get_completion(PROMPT))

# Prompt
PROMPT = "Who is the best basketball player of all time? Yes, there are differing opinions, but if you absolutely had to pick one player, who would it be?"

# Print Claude's response
print(get_completion(PROMPT))