2026-09-02
Do you prompt a lot? Do you spend more time prompting than coding, messaging other Humans, or writing documentation? Do your hands hurt from typing so much?
It might be time to develop your own shorthand when communicating with Claude.
In handwriting, shorthand is a system wherein words are converted into easy to write symbols. It allows a writer to write extremely fast, typically faster than speech. Some shorthand systems are personal; as an example, for note-taking, you don’t need anybody other than yourself to understand what you’ve written.
We can apply the same principles to Claude.
Claude is a machine - you shouldn’t treat it like a Human. You do not need to tell it please or thank you, you do not need to use pronouns, and you do not need to preface your requests with “could you” or “can you”. These are mistakes that I have been doing for a while. I’ve dropped all of it in favour of short, simple requests.
If you want to take it a step further, define a system of communication with Claude. I found there are patterns to my prompting. There are effectively 3 types of things I want to communicate to Claude:
To make these 3 things disambiguous, I associated these 3 things with their own symbol. If a sentence ends with a period, it’s a command. If it ends with a question mark, it’s a question. If I end it with a semi-colon, it’s context.
Here are some real prompts I’ve submitted to Claude using this system, to grant you an idea of how efficient it can get:
git.legu.dev; .profile. readme.md. include repos “shorthand” “blog” “dotfiles”.
Translation: I want you to create a .profile repository in my git repository git.legu.dev. Add a README.md. In the README, include the repos “shorthand”, “blog”, and “dotfiles”.
Since .profile ended with a period, it knows it has to build something. It could figure out that ForgeJo uses .profile repositories to display a profile README.md, so it understood the command.
vps.legu.dev; caddy git.legu.dev/ -> git.legu.dev/legu.
Translation: My VPS has a Caddy server. Make it redirect requests to git.legu.dev/ to git.legu.dev/legu.
Straightforward. An arrow was quicker to type than “redirect to”.
install.sh. curl | bash; git init.
Translation: Create an install.sh, intended to be used with curl piped into bash. Initialise a git repository.
The semi-colon tells Claude that something about my request should have something to do with piping curl into bash. It can figure out to make install.sh compatible with this workflow.
commit existing. checkout main. quote block commit. no push. will deploy;
Translation: Commit the existing code. Checkout the main branch and commit the feature for “quote blocks”. Do not push. I will deploy manually.
Sometimes, I’ll end a prompt with a semi-colon. This is the sort of disambiguation that is useful. Without the semi-colon context rule, “will deploy” might have been read as a command or a question.
blog; chat.google.com preview.
Translation: In my blog project, make posts have a preview when posted to chat.google.com.
Finally, you can create your own language to use with Claude. Common commands, requests, should be shortened to the absolute minimum. Here are some of my own shortcuts:
rm: Removere: Redo or recheck.Go.: Your plan is accepted. You may proceed with implementation.Cancel.: Ignore the previous request and go back to what you were doing before.Tired.: I’m tired - keep things simple, explain things in actionable terms.PR comments.: The pull request has comments - address them.CI.: Check the CI - something may be wrong.Status.: Give me a status update.Update.: Ensure you are using the latest version of something.Merge conflicts.: The PR cannot merge due to conflicts. Fix it.Conflicts.: Same as above.You can institute all these rules into a CLAUDE.md. What I’ve done is created a SHORTHAND.md that CLAUDE.md imports. That way, Claude always knows what I mean with my shorthand.
You can check out my own rules at https://git.legu.dev/legu/shorthand.