Figure out what you're actually optimizing for before you plan
A plan built without an explicit priority quietly optimizes for whatever feels urgent moment to moment.
- Use it for
- Anyone about to plan something with competing tradeoffs — speed, quality, cost — who hasn't named which one wins.
Plans with competing tradeoffs — speed versus quality, cost versus flexibility — often get built without anyone naming which one actually wins when they conflict, which means the plan quietly optimizes for whatever feels most urgent at each moment instead of a deliberate priority. This prompt names the real priority explicitly before planning, so tradeoffs get resolved consistently instead of moment to moment.
When not to use this
If there's genuinely no tension between your priorities for this specific plan, this step adds nothing — proceed straight to planning.
Did this work?
You have one explicit priority named, with the tradeoffs it implies made visible, before building the actual plan around it.
Tested on claude-opus-5. Evidence status is draft; it moves to battle-tested only on recorded runs, never by hand.