Few-shot prompting

Show Claude examples to shape output precisely

Teaching by showing

Few-shot prompting means giving Claude examples of what you want before asking it to do the real task. Instead of describing the output, you demonstrate it. This is often more effective than any amount of verbal instruction — especially for style, format, and tone.

When to use it

• You have a specific writing style or format you want replicated
• The output pattern is hard to describe in words
• You are getting responses that are close but not quite right
• You want consistency across multiple outputs

Basic structure

Here are examples of the kind of output I want:

Example 1:
[Input]: [some input]
[Output]: [the output you want]

Example 2:
[Input]: [another input]
[Output]: [the output you want]

Now do the same for:
[Input]: [your actual input]

Real example: client status updates

I write weekly status updates for clients. Here are two examples of my preferred style:

Example 1 (Gallagher Auto Spa):
This week: Completed the homepage mockup and shared for review. Waiting on your logo files before we can finalize the header.
Next week: Once we have the logo, we'll move to inner pages.
One thing from you: Please send the logo package by Thursday.

Example 2 (ORLA):
This week: Launched the food handler quiz update — passing rate is up 12% since the change. Fixed the certificate download bug.
Next week: Starting on the alcohol server module rebuild.
One thing from you: Confirm whether the certificate expiry logic should reset on retake or keep the original date.

Now write a status update for:
Client: Treal Performance
This week: Finished the catalog sync middleware — 847 products now live. Found a pricing discrepancy in the winch category.
Next week: Fix the pricing issue and start on the filter sidebar.
Need from client: Confirmation on whether sale prices should override or stack with coupon codes.