Then sharpen
Whichever on-ramp you used, you now have a draft. Finish the way every idea does: paste it into the Sharpen prompt on the idea you are working on, and tighten it until two people would make the same decision from it.
Say it another way
Sharpen is this site's name for the final step: you paste your draft into a set prompt that pushes you to make it clear and specific, until two people reading it would make the same decision. It is the difference between a rough note to self and a brief someone else could actually act on.
Doing this with Claude Code: Checkable criteria
A gap is only specific if you could test it, and if you cannot say how you would check the result the ask is still too vague. Vague in, vague out, the old garbage in garbage out (GIGO) where the garbage is vagueness. Claude still tries, but it wanders into work that feels like progress and fixes nothing. So make the criterion checkable and keep it to one small thing. Do not ask for a soft quality like be conservative or show the most important things, because important is your call and Claude cannot know it on its own. Name the dimension instead, performance or security, and if that is still broad go one level finer, so security becomes PII in logs. Sort by what is at stake, not by how sure Claude feels, by saying what to always report and what to skip. Pin any vague dial to a concrete example too, so critical is anchored to a real snippet and not a feeling. One noisy category and you start to become unsure of what to trust in the project, so when one goes noisy, mute it, fix it properly, then bring it back.
A criterion is sharp when it is checkable not vague, names the dimension, sorts by stakes and anchors severity. Mute the noisy category when it cries wolf.
Checkable, not vague. If you cannot say how you would test it, the ask is still too vague. Flag the bake only if the oven is outside 180 to 200 beats check the temperature is sensible.
Name the dimension, then go finer. Do not say be careful or the important bits, name what matters here, the seasoning, the timing, the food safety, and if that is still broad narrow it, food safety becomes anything served undercooked.
Sort by stakes, not confidence. Say what to always flag, anything unsafe, and what to skip, a wonky garnish, rather than asking it to guess what is important.
Anchor severity to an example. Critical, major and minor mean nothing on their own, pin each to a concrete case so it grades the same way every time.
Mute the noisy one. If one category cries wolf, turn it off, fix it properly, then bring it back, before its false alarms make you distrust the rest.
Doing this with Claude Code: Grouping your fixes
When you have a few fixes to give, decide how to group them first. Ask one question, do these affect each other. If fixing one would change the others, put them all in one detailed message with the whole picture of how they join up, so Claude can balance them together. A vague list hands the steering back to it. If the fixes are independent, send them one at a time and check each before the next, otherwise its fix for the next thing breaks the last one and it goes round in circles. Grouping the work this way is your job, not Claude's. And do not just hit return on what comes back. Stop, read what it did and if it has drifted somewhere you did not expect, reframe and ask questions until it is clear. It might be right, but you are the one driving.
How you send fixes depends on whether they affect each other, one message or one at a time. Then read what it did.
Ask if they affect each other. That one question decides how to send your fixes.
Dependent, one message. If changing the oven temperature also changes the timing, give both together with the whole picture, so it can balance them.
Independent, one at a time. A typo and the salt do not touch each other, so send them separately and check each, or its next fix undoes the last.
Read what it did. Do not just hit return, look at the change, and if it has drifted, reframe and ask questions. You are the one driving.
Part of Ways to get to a sharp answer.