AI Digest App - Prompt Building Steps

The complete prompt engineering methodology for architecting AI projects. Learn how to talk to AI coding tools like Replit as a senior engineer would, with systematic conversation flow from problem statement to production-ready prompts.

Navigation: ← Previous: Workshop Structure | Back to Workshops Hub | Next: Vibe Coding Process →

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Table of Contents

• Before You Build: How to Talk to AI Like an Architect

• Quick Start (One-Message Variant)

• Round 0 - Problem Statement (Kickoff)

• Round 1 - Requirements Clarification

• Round 2 - First Architecture Proposal

• Round 3 - Constraint Changes and Revisions

• Round 4 - Final Details Before Prompting Replit

• Round 5 - Master Initialization Prompt

• Round 6 - Phased Build Prompts

• Round 7 - Verification and Hardening

• Plug-and-Play Mini Templates

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Before You Build: How to Talk to AI Like an Architect

Most people open an AI coding tool and start typing “Build me an app.”

That’s the fastest way to get half-working code and a lost context window.

In Workshop Day 3 - Building Products with AI, our goal isn’t just to spin up code; it’s to learn how to orchestrate an AI build process end-to-end the same way a senior engineer or product architect would.

This means teaching your AI partner the entire mental model of the project before you ever ask it to generate a single line of code.

The process below is the conversation chain I used to get from a vague idea - “I want a daily AI digest app” - to a fully runnable prototype with a coherent architecture and modular Replit prompts.

You can reuse this exact structure for any AI-assisted build: an automation tool, a data dashboard, a writing agent, anything.

Think of it as your pre-build system design ritual.

It keeps Replit (or any AI IDE) context-anchored so it builds consistently instead of guessing phase by phase.

Use this document as a template:

1. Replace the example details with your own project idea.

2. Walk through each “Round” conversationally with ChatGPT.

3. When finished, you’ll have a Master Initialization Prompt and a clean set of Phased Build Prompts to drop into Replit.

The rest of this guide walks you through that conversation flow - from your first “I want to build …” message to a full Replit-ready build plan.

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Quick Start (One-Message Variant)

If you don’t want the full dance, send this to ChatGPT: