Before writing a single prompt, get hands-on access to a model playground where you can see and change every setting the chat apps hide — the system prompt, temperature, and token limits.
Why: consumer chat apps (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude.ai) hide the controls you are about to learn — temperature, token limits, the system prompt. A playground exposes every knob so you can actually see what each one does. When: use a playground for this entire course; switch back to the chat app for everyday use.
Pick ONE playground and keep it open for the whole course:
OpenAI Playground -> platform.openai.com/playground
Google AI Studio -> aistudio.google.com
Anthropic Console -> console.anthropic.com (Workbench)
Each one gives you three things the chat apps do not:
1. A System prompt box
2. A Temperature / Top-P slider
3. A Max-output-tokens fieldWhy: you need a reference point. Run this exact prompt now, with default settings, and read the answer. Every later lesson changes one thing and asks "what moved?" — this is the "before".
Explain what a CPU does, in two sentences, to a 10-year-old.Where: the System box usually sits at the top or in a left panel; Temperature and Max tokens live in a "Parameters" or "Settings" sidebar on the right. Why: knowing where they are now means the configuration lessons later will just work.
Locate these before moving on:
[ ] System prompt box -> type: "You are a helpful tutor."
[ ] Temperature slider -> note its current value (often 0.7 or 1)
[ ] Max output tokens -> note the default (often 256-1024)
Re-run the CPU prompt after typing the system message above.
Notice the tone shift — that is the system prompt at work.Why: prompting is iterative — you will tweak the same prompt ten times. Without a log you lose the version that worked. When: start now, before your prompts get complicated. This habit becomes "prompt versioning" in the final lesson.
Create a plain text file or a notes doc with three columns:
Prompt (what you sent) | Settings (temp, model) | What happened
Paste each prompt you try and one line on the result.
This file is your single most useful tool in this course.