TIL on June 3, 2026
Triggers that shape how Claude answers
Dropping one of these keywords into a prompt nudges Claude into a specific reasoning mode. Useful as a quick lens swap without rewriting the whole prompt.
| Trigger | What it does |
|---|---|
| ELI5 | Explain like I'm five — strip jargon, use analogies, assume zero background. |
| Devil's Advocate | Argue against the position on purpose, surface the strongest counter-case. |
| Socratic | Don't answer directly — ask questions that lead me to the answer. |
| Steel Man | Build the strongest version of the opposing argument before responding. |
| First Principles | Break the problem down to fundamentals, rebuild from the ground up. |
| PHD | Go deep — academic level, technical precision, cite mechanisms. |
| No AI | Write without the usual AI tells (hedging, bullet-stuffing, throat-clearing intros). |
| Red Team | Adversarial review — attack the idea, find failure modes, assume hostile users. |
| Artifacts | Produce the deliverable directly (doc, table, code, plan) rather than discussion. |
| OODA | Frame the response as Observe → Orient → Decide → Act. |
Best used at the start of a prompt: Red Team: review this auth flow… or First Principles: why do we need a queue here?