Karpathy / from post to execution
Sixteen prompts.
Four working examples.
Try the four formats from Andrej Karpathy’s post. Prompts 1, 5, 9 and 13 were executed in a GPT-6 Astra-configured Codex workspace, then rendered and revised. The other twelve are unexecuted practice prompts.
01 / STE-inspired writing
1. The working prompt — DNS handout
Executed example
Explain DNS to a new office employee. Use writing inspired by ASD-STE100: short sentences, one idea per sentence, active voice where possible, and one term for each concept. Define DNS, resolver and cache. Keep the distinction between finding an address and loading a website. Show a dense before paragraph and a clearer rewrite. Label this STE-inspired, not verified ASD-STE100 compliance. Use Cloudflare's DNS explainer as the factual source: https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/dns/what-is-dns/. Create a readable one-page PDF with the source link and a two-question comprehension check with answers. Render the PDF and inspect it for clipping.
2. Try it on an operating procedure
Practice prompt · not executed here
Rewrite the procedure I paste below in STE-inspired English. Use one action per numbered step, consistent terms and explicit conditions. Preserve every warning, measurement and exception. Flag ambiguous instructions instead of guessing. Return the rewrite and a table explaining material changes. Do not claim formal ASD-STE100 compliance. Procedure: [paste your procedure].
3. Try it on a recipe
Practice prompt · not executed here
Rewrite my recipe for someone cooking it for the first time. Use STE-inspired short sentences and direct actions. Preserve quantities, temperatures, timing and safety instructions exactly. Separate preparation from cooking. Flag missing units or unclear doneness cues. Return a printable one-page checklist. Recipe: [paste your recipe].
4. Try it on an employee policy
Practice prompt · not executed here
Turn the policy below into a plain-language employee guide using STE-inspired writing. Preserve eligibility, deadlines, exceptions and obligations. Keep official terms and define them. Show three examples clearly labelled as illustrations. Highlight anything that needs the policy owner's clarification. Return a before-and-after document. Policy: [paste approved text].
02 / Diagrams
5. The working prompt — RAG evidence flow
Executed example
Create an editable SVG diagram that teaches a new engineer a simplified retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) workflow. Show two lanes: document preparation (documents -> chunks -> searchable index) and answering (question -> retrieve passages -> enough evidence?). A yes branch gives the question and passages to a model, which drafts an answer with citations; a no branch asks for better evidence. Connect the index to retrieval. Treat the evidence check as our proposed design, not a guarantee built into every RAG system. Use at most ten nodes, labelled arrows and large text. State that citations still need checking. Include an accessible text description. Export the SVG and an HTML page that displays it. Ground retrieval in https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/guides/retrieval.
6. Try it on science
Practice prompt · not executed here
Explain why Earth has seasons with an annotated diagram for a 12-year-old. Use NASA as the factual source. Show axial tilt, sunlight angle and opposite seasons in the hemispheres. Label scale distortions. Address the distance-from-the-Sun misconception. Produce editable SVG plus a short accessible description, and verify the geometry and labels.
7. Try it on a team process
Practice prompt · not executed here
Turn the onboarding process I paste below into a swimlane diagram. Give the employee, manager and IT team separate lanes. Show handoffs, dependencies and waiting points. Mark missing owners as unknown. Return an editable diagram and a table of unresolved decisions. Process: [paste the steps and owners].
8. Try it on a household system
Practice prompt · not executed here
Create a labelled diagram explaining a rainwater-harvesting system to a homeowner. Show the roof, gutter, first-flush diversion, storage, overflow and non-potable use. Distinguish a conceptual explanation from an installation design. Verify the mechanism with a public water authority source. Return SVG, a legend and questions to ask a qualified installer.
03 / Webpages
9. The working prompt — find the review bottleneck
Executed example
Build a self-contained HTML page that explains a support-review bottleneck. Use synthetic data. Start with 40 incoming tickets/hour, two AI workers at 20 tickets/hour each, one human reviewer, and three minutes of review per ticket. Let me vary arrivals, workers, reviewers and review time. Show agent capacity, review capacity, completed tickets/hour and backlog growth/hour, with the formulas visible. Assume a continuous, steady flow, no starting backlog, no breaks and no rework. Ask me to predict what happens when workers double before revealing the result. Include reset and two example scenarios. Make the page work offline, with keyboard-accessible controls and a mobile layout. Check the baseline, doubled workers and doubled reviewers against hand calculations. Save the complete HTML file.
10. Try it on travel planning
Practice prompt · not executed here
Build an offline HTML packing planner for a trip. Let me set days, laundry frequency, bag weight limit and item weights. Separate required items from optional items. Show total weight and explain each suggested removal. Use my inputs rather than invented airline rules. Include reset, keyboard controls and a printable list. Check the totals with two hand-worked cases.
11. Try it on a classroom concept
Practice prompt · not executed here
Build an interactive HTML lesson on mixing coloured light. Provide red, green and blue sliders, a resulting colour swatch and numeric values. Explain additive light mixing and why this differs from mixing paint. Include three prediction questions with revealable answers. Use an authoritative optics source, accessible controls and a description that does not rely on colour alone.
12. Try it on a café operation
Practice prompt · not executed here
Create a self-contained HTML café-capacity calculator. Let me vary orders/hour, baristas, preparation minutes/order and espresso-machine capacity. Display the limiting stage and show every formula. Use explicitly synthetic inputs; exclude queue variability and label that limitation. Add two contrasting scenarios and test the arithmetic. Make it usable on a phone.
04 / Explainer videos
13. The working prompt — animate the bottleneck
Executed example
Create a 35-45 second narrated mathematical explainer for team leads: why more AI workers may not speed up approvals. Use this synthetic example: 40 tickets arrive per hour; two workers can draft 20 each; one reviewer takes three minutes per ticket. Animate the flow, show the 20/hour review ceiling, then double workers without changing completed throughput. Finish by doubling reviewers, which raises the idealised completed rate to 40/hour. Label this a simplified steady-flow model with no breaks or rework. Use clear geometric animation and original visual design, English narration, captions, no music, and a readable 16:9 layout. Use an available local speech engine if no voice service is connected. Produce an MP4, an English VTT caption file and representative stills. Check every number and inspect the rendered clip.
14. Try it on mathematics
Practice prompt · not executed here
Make a 45-second narrated animation explaining why repeated doubling eventually outruns adding ten. Compare sequences starting at one: add ten each step versus multiply by two. Label the axes and compute all displayed values in code. Show the crossing point. Deliver MP4, captions, transcript and stills. Use original visuals and an available speech engine.
15. Try it on biology
Practice prompt · not executed here
Create a 60-second explainer showing how water moves through a plant, for secondary-school learners. Use a university or botanical institution as the factual source. Distinguish roots, xylem, leaves and transpiration. Label simplifications. Deliver a narrated MP4, captions and transcript. Verify that arrows and narration describe the same direction of movement.
16. Try it on everyday technology
Practice prompt · not executed here
Create a 45-second explainer showing why noise-cancelling headphones reduce some sounds better than others. Use manufacturer engineering documentation and an acoustics source. Animate the simplified wave relationship, then show a limitation. Avoid promising perfect silence. Deliver original animation, narration, captions, transcript and three stills. Inspect the final render for sync and legibility.