Figure out why something broke
Everyday
Give the symptom, what you tried and your setup, and get three likely causes with how to check each.
Fill the blanks and it copies as you filled it
[Attach a photo of the problem — delete this line if you have none]
Help me work out what's wrong.
- What's happening:
- What I already tried:
- Setup:
- Three likely causes in order. One line on how to check each
- Tell me if this is something I should call someone for0 of 3 blanks filled · anything left blank copies with its brackets
What this prompt does
Compared with asking the same thing without the length and format lines.estimate
Estimated output tokens
700
Asked loosely
320
This prompt
Energy (Wh)
1.215
Asked loosely
1.215
This prompt
Tokens estimated from characters; energy measured by Jegham et al. 2025.
A shorter answer, but the same energy band — the measurements are per band.
Reported backfire — Specifying output lengthSpecifying a length longer than needed backfires (a 34% increase in 11% of scenarios)
Where these figures come from
Published figures for the rule itself — not what this prompt saves.
Specifying output length
38.7%mean reduction · 95% CI 29.7–47.7%
Podder et al. 2026 BP#5 · 18 use cases / 57 prompts
by modelGPT-4o 35%Command R+ 49%Mistral-7B 32%
Reduced in every scenario. No backfire reported