Keep a guide current by having your AI update it after you correct its work

When you correct something your AI wrote, don't stop at the fix. Ask your AI to compare your version with its draft and suggest changes to the guide, prompt or standing instructions it worked from. You approve the changes, and the next piece starts closer to what you want. Without this step, you end up making the same corrections every time.

What you need

• A guide your AI works from. A style guide, a checklist or a prompt kept as a memo, or the standing instructions on a collection. See Give a collection standing instructions.

• Your corrections in Fieldwerk. Edit the memo directly, or leave comments on the passages you'd change. See Comment on a memo and mention people.

Your AI can see what you changed because every version of a memo is kept, with who made each change, person or AI. See See and restore earlier versions of a memo.

How it goes

1. Your AI writes something from the guide.

2. You fix it, by editing or commenting.

3. You ask your AI to look at your fixes and sort them into one-offs and habits.

4. It suggests new or changed rules for the guide, and you choose which to keep.

5. It updates the guide. The guide's own history means you can undo a rule that didn't work out.

Keep the rules short and specific. "Use the client's name in the first line" is easier to follow than "make it more personal".

Ask your AI to learn from your edits

In Fieldwerk, I've edited a memo you wrote for me. Ask me which memo, then compare my version with yours using its history and list what I changed. Ask me which guide, prompt or instructions it was written from, suggest the rules that would have got it right first time, and update that guide only once I agree.

Or, if you left comments instead:

In Fieldwerk, ask me which memo to look at, then read my comments on it. Tell me which ones are about this memo only and which are habits you should keep, and suggest how to add the habits to the guide behind it. Show me the change before you save it.

If others use the same guide, the improvement reaches them too, the next time their AI reads it. Tell them what changed, or leave a comment on the new rule.