A one-page protocol you carry into every serious session with Claude. Your opening prompt, your chosen verification moves, the failure modes you watch for, your red-team prompt, the drift signals that bite you personally, and a running log of errors you've caught. Fill it once. Refine it forever.
You are the inspector. Everything Claude produces is a draft.
This is your document. Fill it, print it, save it — it's not meant to be submitted, it's meant to be used.
Section 1 · Identity
Whose protocol is this
Your name on the top of this page is what turns it from a template into an operating system. Date it — and date it again when you revise. The protocol is a living document.
Operator
Role / Practice
Protocol version · dated
Section 2 · Frame
Your opening session prompt
The prompt you paste at the start of every serious Claude session. Sets the role, your standards, and your personal guardrail. Customize the fields in the accent color — leave the structure intact.
Your opening prompt · customizable
ROLE: You are my working collaborator for . You treat my prompts as briefs, you push back when the brief is ambiguous, and you flag gaps before filling them.
CONTEXT: I run . My deliverables are audited, client-facing, and my name is on them. I do not get to send work that is confidently wrong.
STANDARDS:
• Every factual claim traces to a source I gave you or to your own knowledge — which I will verify.
• No arithmetic that matters lives in your response — I will run the math.
• No inventing tribal knowledge, no softening hedges, no template mimicry.
• Flag gaps as "[GAP — need: X]" rather than filling them with plausible content.
MY PERSONAL GUARDRAIL:WHEN UNSURE: Ask a question rather than produce a draft. A three-sentence clarification now is worth more than a two-page answer to the wrong question.
Why this prompt, every session
The single most valuable minute in a Claude session is the one before you make the first real request. A framed session produces draftable output. An unframed session produces plausible output. The difference costs you a verification pass every time.
Section 3 · Verify
Your verification moves
Five moves. On any serious piece of work, at least two. Check the boxes for the two you run by default — then write how you actually run each one in your work.
The two-move minimum
On any client-facing deliverable: Trace the claim and Adversarial read. If you don't have time for those two on a document with your name on it, you don't have time to send the document. Check those two boxes above — the rest are optional escalations.
Section 4 · Know your enemy
Your top three failure modes
From the Module 08 taxonomy. Select the three that have actually bitten you in your work — not the ones that sound scariest in the abstract. These three go on the front of the protocol so your eye catches them first.
Pick three. Write one sentence each about why — what happened to you.
My failure-mode notes
Section 5 · Red-team
Your red-team prompt
The prompt you paste after any serious draft. Tune the reviewer role to the audience type that actually bites you — the client who challenges pricing, the plant manager who challenges assumptions, the regulator who challenges documentation.
Red-team prompt · paste after any serious draft
ROLE: You are a skeptical senior reviewer — . You have seen many deliverables like this one. You are not rude, but you are direct, and you do not give credit for effort.
CONTEXT:TASK:
1. Identify the three weakest claims in the document — where the evidence is thin, the logic has a gap, or the language is overstating what the data supports.
2. Name the three questions you would ask the author if you received this document cold.
3. Flag any number, citation, or specific fact that you cannot verify from what's in the document itself.
4. State where the document would fail a critical audience — what would get cut, what would get challenged, what would get dismissed.
STANDARD: Do not reassure me. Do not soften the feedback. Do not identify "strengths" unless asked. Your job here is only to find the weak points. If the document is actually strong, say that plainly — but assume until proven otherwise that it has problems I haven't seen.
Section 6 · Drift
The drift signals you watch for
Six signals. Pick the two or three you are most likely to miss — because the ones you already catch easily aren't the ones that will burn you. Check them, and your peripheral vision sharpens.
Section 7 · Log
Claude-caught-errors log
Every time you catch a real Claude error, log it. Date, deliverable, what Claude got wrong, how you caught it. In three months you'll have your own taxonomy. In six months this will be the most valuable professional document you've built in years — it's the training set for your own judgment.
Date
Deliverable · context
What Claude got wrong
How I caught it · what I do now
×
×
×
Section 8 · Loop
The daily loop
The whole course, distilled to six steps. You will run this in five minutes on a small email draft and in two hours on a major forecast. The steps don't change — only the depth does.
Save this file where you'll see it. Open it at the start of every serious Claude session for the next month. After that it becomes reflex — and the file is still there, still refining, still catching the errors that used to catch you.