Secret Prompts: 75 Power Techniques Most People Never Use

Before You Start: What "Secret" Means Here

The word "secret" in the title means rarely taught. It does not mean hidden, forbidden or unlocked.

There are no jailbreaks in this book. There are no tricks for getting around the safety systems of any AI provider, no instructions for making an assistant ignore its rules, and nothing here that goes against any provider's terms of use. Every technique is something you can use openly, in an ordinary conversation with a general-purpose AI chat assistant such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini.

So why "secret"? Because most people learn to use AI by typing a question and accepting the first answer. They never learn that the shape of the request changes the quality of the result. The seventy-five techniques that follow are request shapes: ways of asking, structuring, checking and iterating that people who use AI every day tend to discover slowly, by trial and error. Collecting them in one place saves you that time.

How This Book Is Organized

The book has eleven chapters and an index.

• Chapter 1 shows you how to use the book and how to chain techniques together.
• Chapters 2 through 10 hold the seventy-five techniques, numbered S1 to S75, in nine groups.
• Chapter 11 covers responsible use.
• The index at the end maps goals such as "I want to decide" or "I want to write better" to technique numbers.

Every technique is laid out the same way, so you can scan quickly:

• What it does: one or two lines.
• Use it when: the situation it fits.
• The prompt template: a block you copy, with [BRACKETED VARIABLES] you replace.
• Why it works: the mechanism, in plain language.
• Illustrative example: a short before and after. These are invented to show the idea. They are not recordings of real model output, and your results will differ.
• Watch out for: the most common way the technique goes wrong.

What You Need

You need access to a general-purpose AI chat assistant. A separate account or subscription with that provider is required and is not included with this book. The techniques are written to work across assistants, so they avoid anything specific to one product. Where a detail varies by tool (for example, image ratios or video length), the book gives a typical value and tells you to check the app.

A Note on Accuracy

AI assistants can state wrong things in a confident tone. Treat every output as a draft. Where a topic carries legal, medical, financial or safety stakes, the prompts in this book are written to help you prepare, learn and ask better questions, not to replace a qualified professional. Software and platform details change quickly, so anything time-sensitive in this book is described as of late 2026 and should be checked.

Contents

Front Matter

• Before You Start: What "Secret" Means Here
• How This Book Is Organized
• What You Need
• A Note on Accuracy
• Contents

Chapter 1: How to Use and Combine These Techniques

• Reading a technique
• Filling in variables well
• Three ways to combine techniques
• Four ready-made chains
• Keeping a personal technique log

Chapter 2: Prompt Improvement and Meta-Prompting

• S1: The Prompt Improver
• S2: Ask-Me-Questions-First
• S3: Reverse Prompting from a Good Example
• S4: The Spec-Writer
• S5: Prompt Compression
• S6: Variable Extraction
• S7: The Prompt Auditor
• S8: Instruction Hierarchy

Chapter 3: Thinking Partners

• S9: Devil's Advocate
• S10: Pre-Mortem
• S11: Red Team of Your Own Plan
• S12: Expert Panel with Distinct Viewpoints
• S13: First-Principles Breakdown
• S14: Second-Order Effects
• S15: Steelman Then Rebut
• S16: Assumption Hunter
• S17: Inversion
• S18: Constraint Flip
• S19: Decision Matrix Builder
• S20: Regret Minimization

Chapter 4: Extraction and Structure

• S21: Structured Extraction to a Table
• S22: Schema First, Data Second
• S23: Decisions-and-Actions Extraction
• S24: Hierarchy Builder
• S25: Question Extraction
• S26: Pyramid Summary
• S27: Compare-and-Contrast Grid
• S28: Glossary Harvester
• S29: Messy-to-Clean Reformatter
• S30: Gap Finder

Chapter 5: Writing Quality

• S31: Voice Cloning from Your Own Samples
• S32: De-Fluffing
• S33: Claim-and-Evidence Audit
• S34: Rhythm and Readability Pass
• S35: Tone Ladders
• S36: Headline and Hook Lab
• S37: Cut-by-Half Drill
• S38: Jargon Translator
• S39: Consistency Checker
• S40: Objection Pre-empting

Chapter 6: Research and Verification

• S41: Source-First Questioning
• S42: Claim Ledger
• S43: Confidence Labeling
• S44: Contradiction Finder
• S45: What-Would-Change-My-Mind
• S46: Definition Pinning
• S47: Numbers Sanity Check
• S48: Timeline Reconstruction
• S49: Counter-Evidence Search Plan
• S50: Citation-Check Protocol

Chapter 7: Decision Making

• S51: Options Before Choices
• S52: Reversibility Sort
• S53: Three Time Horizons Check
• S54: Criteria Weighting Interview
• S55: Decision Journal Entry
• S56: Kill Criteria and Tripwires
• S57: Small Experiment Designer
• S58: Stakeholder Impact Map

Chapter 8: Learning

• S59: The Feynman Rebuild
• S60: Spaced-Retrieval Question Generator
• S61: Error-Log Tutor
• S62: Analogy Engine
• S63: Concept Map Extractor
• S64: Teach-Back Grader
• S65: Interleaved Practice Planner

Chapter 9: Productivity Systems

• S66: Brain-Dump Sorter
• S67: Weekly Review Interviewer
• S68: Task Slicer
• S69: Meeting Prep Brief
• S70: Checklist Builder

Chapter 10: Image and Media Prompting

• S71: Layered Image Prompt
• S72: Exclusion List
• S73: Shot-List Prompting
• S74: Style Sheet Lock
• S75: One-Variable Iteration Ladder

Chapter 11: Using These Techniques Responsibly

• The draft rule
• Privacy and confidential material
• High-stakes topics
• Honesty with other people
• Synthetic media and likeness
• Learning, not shortcutting
• A short pre-flight checklist

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