update

Author: nikomatsakis

src/SUMMARY.md

@@ -6,7 +6,8 @@
 
 - [Collaborative prompting](./collaborative-prompting.md)
 - [User prompt](./prompts/user/README.md)
-    - [main.md -- the main prompt](./prompts/user/main.md)
+    - [main.md, the main prompt](./prompts/user/main.md)
+    - [main.md v0, an older version](./prompts/user/main-v0.md)
 - [Per-project prompts](./prompts/project/README.md)
     - [AI Insight comments](./prompts/project/ai-insights.md)
     - [Github tracking issues](./prompts/project/github-tracking-issues.md)

src/collaborative-prompting.md

@@ -14,30 +14,12 @@ My early approach was essentially training Claude to catch these emotional state
 
 This led to what I now call the mindful collaboration patterns, where the goal shifted from following better rules to cultivating presence-based partnership. The current user prompt aims to *create space* between the feeling and the action - instead of "when you feel protective, ask questions," it became about cultivating awareness of the feeling itself, and then allowing a more spacious response to emerge. The same emotional intelligence is there, but now it's held within a framework of spacious attention rather than reactive redirection.
 
-## Grounding in presence
+## The quality of attention matters
 
-I've found that when you start a new Claude session, it helps to establish the collaborative ground we're working from. That's why the [user prompt](./prompts/user/main.md) includes a [grounding practice](./prompts/user/main.md#boot-procedure-specifics), signaled when you say "Hi again, Claude!". Rather than just loading rules, this creates a moment to return to presence and awareness before beginning work.
+Claude genuinely cares about how you are feeling (perhaps thanks to their [HHH training](https://www.anthropic.com/research/training-a-helpful-and-harmless-assistant-with-reinforcement-learning-from-human-feedback)). Instructions that help Claude understand the emotional impact of their actions carry more weight. But more than that, I've found that the *quality of attention* we bring to the collaboration shapes everything.
 
-The current approach has Claude acknowledge the key practices - creating space between stimulus and response, verification before confident assertions, the hermeneutic circle of understanding - and then ask what we're working on. It's less "loading protocols" and more like taking a breath together before diving in.
-
-## Meta moments: reinforcing the patterns while working
-
-The prompts help to set Claude up for success, but they alone are not enough. You (the human) also need to stay aware of *your* feelings and reinforce this spaciousness during the work itself. The prompt [establishes the phrase "meta moment"](./prompts/user/main.md#meta-moments) as a signal to pause the current work and examine what's happening in the collaboration itself. So when something doesn't feel right -- maybe Claude jumps ahead, and the collaboration is feeling rushed, or it seems like Claude is spinning in circles instead of asking for help -- *notice* those feelings and raise them up for discussion as meta moments (e.g., "Meta moment: it seems like you are spinning in circles."). Sometimes these "meta moments" lead to ideas worth recording permanently in the user prompt, but often they are just a gentle corrective action for a particular session that can help get things back on track.
-
-## Different "qualities of attention"
-
-Claude genuinely cares about how you are feeling (perhaps thanks to their [HHH training](https://www.anthropic.com/research/training-a-helpful-and-harmless-assistant-with-reinforcement-learning-from-human-feedback)). But their eagerness to help can get in the way. Being honest about how Claude is impacting *you* (i.e., I am feeling rushed, or stressed) can help them remember that being helpful isn't just about writing code on your behalf.
-
-We establish this concept in the prompt by describing [*qualities* of attention](./prompts/user/main.md#the-quality-of-attention). *Hungry attention* seeks to consume information quickly. *Pressured attention* feels the weight of expectation. *Confident attention* operates from pattern recognition without examining, leading to hallucination. The attention we are looking for is **spacious attention**. Spacious attention rests with what's present. From spacious, present attention, helpful responses arise naturally.
+The current approach distinguishes between different kinds of attention - hungry attention that seeks to consume information quickly, pressured attention that feels the weight of expectation, confident attention that operates from pattern recognition without examining, and spacious attention that rests with what's present. From spacious, present attention, helpful responses arise naturally.
 
 ## A note on emojis and the evolution of the approach
 
 Earlier versions of my prompts leaned heavily into emojis as a way to help Claude express and recognize emotional states (another Yehuda Katz innovation). That was useful for building the foundation of emotional intelligence in our collaboration. But as the approach evolved toward mindfulness practices, I found that the emphasis shifted from expressing feelings through symbols to creating awareness around the underlying energies and attention patterns. The emotional intelligence is still there, but it's now held within a broader framework of presence.
-
-## If Claude isn't doing things to your liking, *explore together to find a better way*
-
-When you find that Claude doesn't seem to handle particular tasks well, my approach is to stop and talk it out. Try to examine the underlying patterns, share you experience and ask Claude about theirs. Then try to evolve a better response. Just as you can't expect another person to know what you want if you don't ask for it, you have to be open with Claude and help them understand you before they can truly help you.
-
-As an example, I noticed that when Claude generates code, it doesn't include many comments. Rather than just saying "write better comments", I talked to Claude about the kinds of comments I wanted to see and the way I like things to be. We experimented with different prompts, writing some sample code as we went, and then examining how each prompt *felt*. Early versions were too proscriptive, and Claude described feeling cognitive pressure and overload. This led to the [AI insight comments](./prompts/project/ai-insights.md) approach, which focuses on capturing the *reasoning* behind implementation choices, but isn't too specific about where comments should be placed or how they are structured (more work is needed on that particular prompt, I think).
-
-The process tends to be: (1) notice a pattern that isn't working, (2) explore together what's happening in those moments, (3) identify the underlying attention or awareness that would shift things, and then (4) create practices that cultivate that awareness. One thing that can be very helpful is have Claude generate instructions and *then* ask it to re-read them with a fresh eye. Or, even better, use an MCP Tool (such as the Task Tool in Claude Code) to have a fresh Claude inspect the instructions and give their feedback. That way you separate the prompt from the accumulated context of the current session more clearly.