Anthropic describes Claude, its wildly popular coding agent, as “a brilliant but very new employee.” That metaphor applies perfectly to Gummies too. The difference between a Gummie that’s a true sidekick and one that just sort of works comes down to the instructions you give it.
Writing great instructions is part art, part science. So here are three best practices for writing great instructions.
First up, include a role. Including a role right up front can drastically improve performance. Something like “you’re an executive assistant for a CFO of a Fortune 500 company” will give you a professional, succinct, and accurate Gummie. While something like “you’re a sidekick to Duolingo’s TikTok team” will give you a laid back, irreverent, and maybe even manic Gummie. Providing a role focuses the Gummie on the task, sets the tone, and increases accuracy.
Tip number two: be clear and direct. Remember, your Gummie is a brilliant intern. They’re new to your business. They don’t know how you operate, so be extremely direct and specific. An instruction like “draft beautiful reports” can be confusing—what is beautiful? What is a report? Whereas something like “always write reports in HTML with the following sections as headings” and then giving an example will yield dramatically better and consistent results.
Final tip: use Gummie to improve Gummie. Your Gummie doesn’t remember past conversations. If it messes up, odds are it’ll mess up again unless you update the instructions. So when Gummie goes off course, ask it: “What could I add to the system prompt to help you get this right next time?” This turns your Gummie into its own prompt editor and gives it a kind of virtual memory of mistakes to avoid.
Those are three simple but powerful tips to make your Gummies even better.
