Writing Good Prompts

Every message you send to a CatDoes agent kicks off a series of steps — designing layouts, building features, and refining your app. The clearer your prompt, the fewer steps the agent needs to get it right, and the fewer credits you spend.

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Why Prompt Quality Matters

CatDoes agents work step by step. Each step consumes credits. A vague prompt forces the agent to guess what you mean, try different approaches, or ask follow-up questions — all of which use up credits without moving your project forward. A well-written prompt does the opposite: it gives the agent a clear target so it can get things right on the first try.

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Be Specific About What You Want

The most common mistake is being too broad. Compare these two prompts: Vague:

“Make the homepage look better.”

Specific:

“Redesign the top of the homepage with a large centered title, a short description below it, and a ‘Get Started’ button. Use the brand colors we already have.”

The vague prompt leaves the agent guessing — which part of the homepage? What does “better” mean? The specific prompt tells it exactly what to build and how it should look.

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Describe What You Want to See

Focus on the end result — what should it look like when it’s done? You don’t need to know anything technical. Just describe what you’d want to see on the screen, and the agent will handle the rest. Instead of:

“Fix the layout.”

Try:

“I want three pricing cards sitting next to each other, evenly spaced, centered on the page.”

Think of it like describing a room to an interior designer. You say “I want a cozy reading corner with a lamp and a bookshelf” — you don’t need to tell them which screws to use.

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Break Large Tasks Into Smaller Ones

If you need a full page with a navigation bar, a welcome section, feature highlights, testimonials, and a footer — don’t ask for it all at once. Break it into focused requests:

1. “Add a navigation bar at the top with our logo on the left and menu links on the right.”
2. “Below the navigation bar, add a welcome section with a big heading, a short tagline, and a signup button.”
3. “Below that, show three features side by side, each with an icon and a short description.”

Smaller, focused prompts keep the agent on track and reduce the chance of it misunderstanding what you want.

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Mention What’s Already There

When you’re changing something that already exists in your project, tell the agent what to keep. This helps it avoid accidentally removing or replacing things you like. Good:

“Add a phone number field to the contact form, right below the email field. Keep everything else the same.”

Less helpful:

“Add a phone number field.”

The agent looks at your project before making changes, but giving it context in your prompt helps it make better decisions.

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Describe the Look and Feel

If you have a visual style in mind, say so. The more detail you give, the closer the result will be to what you’re imagining.

• Colors: “Use a dark background with white text.”
• Layout: “Two columns on a computer screen, but stacked on top of each other on a phone.”
• Style: “Keep it clean and simple — no flashy effects.”
• Reference: “Something like the Stripe homepage — modern and minimal.”

You don’t need design terminology. Everyday descriptions like “clean,” “bold,” “playful,” or “professional” work well.

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Keep Design and Functionality Separate

CatDoes has separate agents for how things look and how things work:

• Design agent — handles the visual side. Tell it what things should look like and where they go on the page.
• Software agent — handles what happens when someone clicks a button, submits a form, or interacts with your app.

If you need a new contact form that also sends an email, handle those as two separate requests — one for the design agent (build the form layout) and one for the software agent (make it actually send the email).

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Quick Reference