A new conversation starts with what you put in front of the assistant now. If yesterday's work included an agreed date, an open decision, and a source document, gather those items in a one-page brief before asking for the next draft. The brief helps the new conversation separate confirmed conditions from ideas that still need review.
This method does not depend on a product's saved-memory feature. It is a practical handoff format using a fictional weekend course notice; the dates and participant count below are examples, not details of a real course.
Fill five fields before you write the new prompt
| Field | Question to answer | Example entry |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | What should this conversation produce? | One course notice draft |
| Confirmed | Which conditions are settled? | Saturday at 2 p.m.; eight seats |
| Open | What still needs a decision? | Venue and registration deadline |
| Sources | Which material and version apply? | Course outline, September 20 version |
| Next action | What should happen now? | Draft with open items marked |
Keep “Saturday at 2 p.m.” in the confirmed field only if someone actually made that decision. A venue mentioned as one candidate belongs in Open until it is selected. Put dates, quantities, and names on separate lines when that makes them easier to compare with the source. If a source file changes, note the updated version rather than silently carrying its old label into the next brief.
Ask for a draft that preserves status
Use the five-field handoff brief below to draft a course notice. Keep confirmed items as supplied. Mark open items as [needs confirmation]. Do not add a date, price, venue, or capacity that is absent from the brief or cited source. Return the title, body, and up to three questions I should answer. End with a checklist of the confirmed items you used so I can compare them with the brief.
Place the five fields immediately below that instruction. Include only material you are authorized to share with the chosen service. A customer's contact details, for example, are not needed to draft a general course notice. If a source cannot be shared, summarize the relevant permitted facts yourself and label that summary as the source for this exercise.
Review the output against the brief
Compare each confirmed item with the generated notice: day, time, seat count, and course description. Then search the notice for the open items. They should remain visible as questions or marked placeholders until a decision is made. If the assistant presents a candidate venue as settled, move it back to the open list and revise the notice. This check is about the current draft's status, not about guessing what happened in an earlier conversation.
For a longer handoff, add source pointers: the document title, section, and date beside each factual item. A source pointer gives the next writer a route back to the material. Anthropic's context-engineering explanation discusses choosing what information enters a model's working context. The five-field brief here is a human-facing way to curate that input for an ordinary work task; it is not a measured productivity result.
Finish today's session with tomorrow's starting point
After reviewing the notice, ask the assistant to return an updated handoff brief with the same five fields. Read it before saving: compare numbers and dates with the source, mark any newly confirmed decisions, and remove superseded candidates. A brief that carries the wrong status into the next conversation can make a polished draft harder to use, so give the final review a few minutes.
Try it: Choose one ongoing, shareable task. Fill the five fields in plain text, paste them into a fresh conversation, and check whether the first output preserves the confirmed and open labels. The diagram below shows the brief as a bridge between sessions.
Read the Korean edition of this article.
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