I usually have Claude build a plan first, then I put it into an XML file it updates with phases, usually we talk about some of those tasks, and then once its good and I like it, I have Claude implement the plan.

Another thing I tell Claude to do is to not guess, but look at documentation, it messes up a lot less, might use some tokens reading docs, but at least it has a higher success rate code wise.

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xstas1 7 hours ago | parent [-]

XML??

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giancarlostoro 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Apparently because of how Claude is trained, even the system level prompts go through as XML, it works better with XML "prompting" so I figured I could have it write plans in XML. I need to update my ticketing tool to output XML maybe by default.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1psxuv7/anthropic...

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saltsucker 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Comments later in thread say markdown works just as fine and that it’s more important to organize your plan into sections.

Also just think about it, why would a model trained on the world’s corpus of text (that isnt formatted in xml) perform better with XML? It would be a better study if that post tested markdown, org, xml, json, etc. 10 times to see if their is a difference

	▲	swingboy 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Anthropic’s best practices still include the use of XML: https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/prompt...
	▲	adastra22 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		A year or so ago XML worked more reliably for long-lived prompt instructions. Now it is cargo culting.

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root-parent 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

XML stands for Xtra ML....

	▲	noworriesnate 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I'd like to switch to a sales career--can you give me any pointers?