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"Are you sure?" — the simplest prompting technique

·123 words·1 min
AI LLM prompting technique vibe-coding Software Engineering
Alexey Gnetko
Author
Alexey Gnetko
Tech enthusiast. Curious about modern approaches in software engineering
Table of Contents

Are you sure?
#

People try to get better results from AI by changing models, writing longer/shorter prompts or adding more context.

A simpler technique to get better results often works surprisingly well.

When you get an answer, ask:

Are you sure?

Why it works
#

LLMs frequently stop at the first reasonable answer. Asking them to verify their response forces a second pass over the problem.

I’ve seen this catch mistakes in:

  • Code
  • System design
  • Architecture decisions
  • Calculations
  • Data analysis

The model doesn’t become smarter, but it spends more effort validating its answer instead of stopping at the first acceptable one.

Before spending time on a complex prompt, try adding one short question at the end of your conversation:

Are you sure?