Promptshelf
Prompt Ladder · daily puzzle
Daily · Free · No account

Five prompts, one task. Sort them worst to best.

Each day, five prompts that all solve the same task — each at a different quality level. Reorder them worst→best. After you submit, each gap reveals the prompt engineering principle that separates the two rungs.

Day — Streak: 0 Plays: 0
Puzzle —

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How to play. Five rungs below, in random order. Use the ↑ / ↓ buttons to move each rung up or down until the order reads worst→best. Rung 1 = worst, Rung 5 = best. Hit Submit when you're ready. One try per puzzle per day.
ladder points
Inversions from canonical:
Streak: 0

Why each rung beats the one below it

02 / The ladder of prompt quality

Every rung is one engineering principle.

Rung 1 → 2: Clarity of task. A one-word prompt asks for zero context.

Rung 2 → 3: Role or convention. Tells the model the posture and output shape to adopt.

Rung 3 → 4: Constraints and scope. What's in-bounds, what's off-limits, what kind of output.

Rung 4 → 5: Examples, edge cases, and acceptance criteria. The model produces what you'd accept without follow-up.

03 / More daily puzzles

If you liked this…

04 / Questions

FAQ

How is "worst" and "best" decided?

Each puzzle has a canonical order authored by the maker. Rungs escalate from "vague one-liner" to "role + constraints + examples + edge cases." The gaps are the teachable moment — every answer reveal includes the principle separating adjacent rungs.

How is the score calculated?

Inversions from canonical order. A perfect sort is 0 inversions → 100 ladder points. Each swap away from canonical costs 10 points. Fully reversed is 10 inversions → 0 points. It's the same metric Kendall tau uses for rank correlation.

Can I play multiple puzzles per day?

One puzzle per day, rolling over at 00:00 UTC. Use the Shuffle again button to re-randomize the starting order of today's rungs before you submit — but you only submit once per day. Shared URLs reveal other days' puzzles without counting toward your streak.

What's the share URL format?

After submitting, the page shows a URL like ?day=5&order=dbcae where each letter is the canonical rung position (a=worst, e=best). So dbcae means "I placed canonical-rung-d in position 1, rung-b in position 2…" — your submitted order, bookmarkable and sharable. Visitors can replay the same puzzle.

Where does the streak count live?

In your browser's localStorage under promptLadderStreak. Nothing is uploaded or tracked. Clearing site data resets streak to 0.

How do I get better at this?

Read our CLAUDE.md guide for the skeleton of a well-scoped prompt, grab the Claude Code Starter Kit for 20 power prompts, or try the CLAUDE.md Playground to see how scope inheritance works across levels.

Saved you time? Tip the maker in BTC — no account, no signup, just paste.

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