Simon Willison

Creator of Datasette, co-creator of Django. Writing about LLMs, prompt engineering, and building with AI.

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5 tips total

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AI Agents (1) AI Coding (2) ChatGPT Tips (1) Enterprise AI (1) Prompt Engineering (1)

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How do I get Claude to write in my style?

Paste 3-5 examples of your writing and ask Claude to analyze the style before writing new content. The model will identify patterns in tone, sentence structure, and vocabulary that it can then replicate.

quick-win Simon Willison Prompt Engineering

How do I use AI to refactor legacy code safely?

Feed the AI your existing tests first, then the code to refactor. Ask it to preserve all test-passing behavior while improving structure. This anchors the refactoring to verified behavior rather than assumptions.

advanced Simon Willison AI Coding

Should I use ChatGPT or Claude for long documents?

Claude handles longer contexts more reliably—use it for analyzing documents over 10,000 words. ChatGPT tends to lose track of details in very long inputs, while Claude maintains better coherence across the full context window.

quick-win Simon Willison ChatGPT Tips

How do I use AI to debug code faster?

Paste the error message, the relevant code, and what you expected to happen. Ask: "What is causing this error and how do I fix it?" The AI can often spot issues humans miss, like off-by-one errors or incorrect variable scope.

quick-win Simon Willison AI Coding

What is prompt injection and how do I prevent it?

Prompt injection is when user input overrides your system instructions. Prevent it by: separating user input with clear delimiters, validating inputs, using the system message for instructions (not user message), and never trusting user input to be benign.

advanced Simon Willison AI Agents, Enterprise AI