I run a small software business by myself — no co-founder, no team. The thing that keeps it alive isn't a clever framework or a hot stack. It's a short list of AI prompts I've written and rewritten until they actually save me time instead of burning it.
Here are seven I use every single week. The exact text is in each block. Copy it, change the bracketed parts, and make it yours.
1. The "standup for one" prompt (mornings)
I open my editor before I've fully woken up. This prompt turns a vague brain-dump into a focused plan so I don't spend 30 minutes deciding what to do first.
Act as my standup partner. Here are yesterday's outcomes and today's tasks: [paste].
1. Identify the single highest-leverage task today and why it matters most.
2. Flag any task carried over 2+ days and tell me whether to cut it or commit to it.
3. Give me a 3-step plan ordered by energy cost — hard thing first.
4. End with one question I should be able to answer by end of day.
2. The Friday weekly reset
Friday afternoons are for closing loops. Without this, Monday me walks into a half-finished mess.
Act as my weekly reviewer. Here's what I shipped, what slipped, and how the week felt: [paste].
1. Surface one decision that worked and one that didn't.
2. Find a recurring time-sink to automate, delegate, or delete next week.
3. Draft 3 goals for next week that ladder to a 90-day aim.
4. Tell me one thing to stop doing.
3. The pull-request description writer
Writing the PR is often longer than writing the code. This handles the boilerplate so reviewers get a clean summary.
Here is my diff: [paste].
Write a pull-request description with:
- "What" — one-line summary a reviewer can skim.
- "Why" — the user or business reason, not the implementation reason.
- "How to test" — exact reproduction steps.
- "Risk" — what could break and how to roll back.
Keep it under 150 words. No marketing tone.
4. The commit-message generator
Messy commit history makes future-you hate past-you.
Given these staged changes: [paste].
Write 3-5 conventional commits (type(scope): subject). Group related changes.
Each subject line <= 50 chars, imperative mood. Add a body only if the "why" is non-obvious.
5. The debugging partner
This one stops me from going down rabbit holes. It forces me to state my assumption out loud — which is usually where the bug lives.
I'm debugging this. Here is the code and the unexpected behavior: [paste].
Before suggesting fixes:
1. Restate my assumption about how the code works.
2. Point out the single line where that assumption is weakest.
3. Give me one experiment that would confirm or rule out that line as the cause.
Do not hand me a rewritten solution yet.
6. The cold client email
One client pays for a year of side-project hosting. This keeps outreach short and human.
Write a cold email to [name], who works on [their project]. I noticed [specific real thing].
Constraints:
- Under 90 words, plain text, no buzzwords.
- Lead with something useful to THEM, not me.
- One soft question, not a hard ask.
- Sound like a person, not a template.
7. The "decide already" summarizer
When I've collected too many notes and can't see the decision, this collapses it.
Here are my scattered notes on a decision: [paste].
1. State the actual decision in one sentence (often I haven't even named it).
2. List the 2-3 real options.
3. For each, the single strongest argument for and against.
4. Tell me which option a rational outsider would pick and why.
Do not hedge. Pick.
The honest part
These seven are the ones that stuck. I keep the full set — morning routines, weekly resets, content, client follow-ups, the unglamorous operational stuff — in a free starter pack of 10 prompts if you want to skip the writing.
And if you want the whole library I work from, it's a 68-prompt vault built around running a one-person business without burning out. No subscription — one-time, and the free pack covers the most useful bits if you'd rather not pay.
Either way: steal the seven above first. The point isn't the pack, it's having prompts tuned enough that you actually use them.
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