Build a library of at least eight tested templates for the work you do most often.
The same kinds of task come back week after week, and writing a fresh prompt for each one every time wastes effort. Picture a busy week (an imagined one): a client wants a proposal by Thursday, your manager wants a summary of a forty-page report, and a dozen emails each need a careful reply. Without a library, each of those tasks starts from a blank chat box. With one, each starts from a tested template, and your time goes into the parts only you can do.
A template library is a set of tested templates for your most frequent work, kept in one place and grouped by job. Building yours is the first deliverable of the final project, and it draws on the whole course. Allow about an hour. You can spread the work over several sittings.
Your library needs at least eight templates covering the work you do most often. It lives in the place you chose in lesson 9.2, "Store and organise it where you work", and is organised by job. The required mix has four parts:
at least two writing tasks, such as client emails, announcements or reports at least one document task, such as summarising a long file with page references or extracting information into a table at least one planning task, such as an outline-first plan or a questions-first brief at least one checking or critique task, such as the fresh-chat critique from lesson 7.2, "Ask for a critique, and know its limits"
The rest can be whatever you do most.
In this project, a template is a reusable prompt with labelled blanks in square brackets for the parts that change, plus a when-to-use line, a checking level, a sample output and notes from two test runs.
You already have more source material than you think. Collect your work from the course: the rewritten prompts from lesson 1.4, the example set from lesson 2.4, the step log from lesson 3.5, the feedback rounds from lesson 4.4, the summary prompts from lesson 5.4, the project instructions from lesson 6.4 and the two templates you made in lesson 9.1, "Turn a prompt that worked into a template". Good results in your chat history count too, so add the prompts that produced them.
List all of these. Keep the ones that match tasks you do at least every month. Where the required mix has a gap, write a new prompt for that purpose.
Then convert each prompt using the method from lesson 9.1. Keep the context, examples, constraints, format and things to avoid. Turn names, figures, dates and other specifics into labelled blanks in square brackets. Add a when-to-use line at the top saying when the template applies. Underneath it, paste a good sample output with confidential details removed.
A template only counts as tested once it has worked on inputs it was not built from. Run each one twice on new, real inputs, each time in a fresh chat. After each run, note how much editing the output needed. Your notes for each run should record the input, how the output did and what you changed.
If either run needed heavy editing, fix the template the way lesson 9.1 showed you: look at what you kept changing, tighten that instruction or swap the sample, then test again. If two rounds of fixing do not help, drop the template and pick another task.
Next, give each template a checking level from lesson 7.1, "Match the check to what is at stake", and write it at the top beside the when-to-use line. Write it down because the day you most need a template is the day you are most tempted to skip the check.
Daniel is the customer service lead at a furniture shop you met in module 2 (an invented example). He built his library in the order of the required mix. His two writing tasks are a delivery query reply and a damaged item reply. His document task is a supplier invoice extractor, his planning task is a questions-first prompt for planning promotions, and his checking task is a fresh-chat critique of customer-facing announcements. He then added three others: a product description, a weekly sales summary for his manager, and a refund-decision checklist that reads the returns policy he uploads. That makes 2 writing + 1 document + 1 planning + 1 checking + 3 others = 8 templates.
When he tested them, his damaged item reply passed first time on both runs. His product description template gave the same opening sentence for a sofa and a bookshelf, so he replaced the sample output with a shorter, plainer one. On the next two runs the openings varied properly. He marked the refund checklist "primary source" because it touches money and the customer's rights, and he always checks its conclusion against the actual policy wording.
Templates go out of date. Products change, your work changes, and a template can drift when the assistant moves to a new model, so one that worked in March may stop working by August. Set a monthly calendar reminder. At each review, retire templates you have not used in the past month or two, update any that mention old prices, policies or names, and retest heavily used templates after the assistant announces a major update.
When you finish, check that your library has at least eight templates in one place, grouped by job. Each template should have a when-to-use line, a checking level, labelled blanks, a sample output and notes from two test runs. You should also have a monthly review booked in your calendar.
Once the library is done, use it for one full working day and count how often you reach for it. That count is the best measure of whether the library fits the work you really do.
To begin, open the place your library will live and list every candidate prompt from your course work.
Finish a library of at least eight templates. Each needs blanks, a when-to-use line, a checking level and notes from two test runs.
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