Claude Prompting

Introduction

Claude (Anthropic) loves XML tags and detailed system prompts. It excels at long-context tasks (200k window) and careful reasoning.

Beginner analogy: Claude is the meticulous specialist — likes structure, rewards detailed instructions.

Understanding the topic

Core concepts to understand:

• Use XML delimiters: <task>, <context>, <rules>.
• Long detailed system prompts work well.
• 200k context window — great for docs & codebases.
• Excels at refusal / safety-aware output.
• Use Claude's official prompting guide patterns.

Syntax reference

Visual workflow / architecture:

<task>Summarise the contract.</task>
<rules>
  <rule>Max 200 words.</rule>
  <rule>Highlight risk clauses.</rule>
</rules>
<contract>{text}</contract>

Real-world use

Cursor, Notion AI, GitHub Copilot Chat all use Claude for complex coding tasks because of its instruction-following.

Best practices

• XML over markdown for delimiters.
• Don't be afraid of long system prompts (1000+ tokens) — Claude follows them.
• Use 'Think step by step inside <thinking> tags' for hidden CoT.

Hands-on exercise

Interview preparation — practice these questions:

• Q1. Why XML on Claude?
• Q2. What's special about Claude's context window?
• Q3. Compare Claude vs GPT for code review.
• Q4. Claude's hidden thinking tags — what?