The foundation. Build these once, and most other recipes build on top of them. This is one of the 6 Recipe categories. Each recipe below opens to reveal its full steps, an example, and a live demo you can run. Filter by effort if you want the quicker ones first.
Build these once; most other recipes build on top
What is a recipe?
A recipe is a short, numbered sequence that combines a few moves into a repeatable result. Each one below opens to reveal its purpose, when to use it, the full steps, an example, and a live demo. For single one-prompt moves, see the Playbook. Recipes are grouped into 6 categories; this article is one of them.
The Recipes
Each recipe is collapsed by default. Click one to expand its purpose, when to use it, the numbered steps, an example, and a demo you can run right there. The badge shows the effort.
Build a persona the right way a high-quality persona, no prompt-writing required Setup ▸
Purpose: Create a high-quality persona without writing instructions from scratch. You enter three fields; the Optimize with Smith button builds the rest. This is the foundation most other recipes build on.
When to use this: Any time you want Smith to behave a consistent way for a recurring task (a reviewer, a summarizer, a client-comms writer) and you do not want to hand-write the instructions.
| # | What you do | What you should see |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Open the Personas tab and click Create Personas | The Build Your Persona form opens |
| 2 | Fill in three fields only: Persona Name, Title, Persona Primary Goal | The minimum Smith needs |
| 3 | Click Optimize with Smith (top right) | Smith fills in every remaining field |
| 4 | Review each field; adjust anything that feels off | A persona that matches your intent |
| 5 | Save, then run one real task through it | Proof it works |
You end up with: a high-quality persona, no prompt-writing required.
Build your "My Voice" persona a persona that drafts in your voice with near-zero editing Setup ▸
Purpose: The single highest-leverage setup. Once Smith writes in your voice, every drafting recipe gets dramatically better and needs almost no editing. Your style is distilled once and saved into the persona, so you never re-upload writing samples.
When to use this: Before you start using Smith for any email, message, or document drafting. Build this first and every later writing recipe improves.
| # | What you do | What you should see |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | In any chat, paste 3 to 5 emails you are proud of: "Describe my writing style as a short profile I can reuse: tone, sentence length, word choice, greetings, sign-offs." | A reusable style profile |
| 2 | Copy the profile, then open Personas → Create Personas | The builder opens |
| 3 | Name: My Voice. Title: My personal writing voice. Primary Goal: paste the style profile | Your style is in the persona |
| 4 | Click Optimize with Smith, review, and Save | A working voice persona |
| 5 | Turn it on and draft one real reply | It already sounds like you |
You end up with: a persona that drafts in your voice with near-zero editing.
Build your "Me" file a personal context file Smith references everywhere Setup ▸
Purpose: Give Smith durable context on who you are, so it stops needing the backstory every time. The foundation of personalized answers across every future chat.
When to use this: Early on, and any time your role or focus changes. Once it exists, every chat can draw on it so you stop re-explaining yourself.
| # | What you do | What you should see |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brain-dump your resume, role, org chart, key relationships, and goals into one chat | Everything in |
| 2 | "Turn this into a structured About Me profile" | A clean profile |
| 3 | Export the result to a file | A document |
| 4 | Upload it to a Me folder in your workspace | Now queryable |
You end up with: a personal context file Smith references everywhere.
Build a Prompt Builder persona an assistant that writes your prompts for you Setup ▸
Purpose: Stop struggling to write good prompts. This persona takes your messy context and hands back a well-formed prompt to use in a fresh chat.
When to use this: Whenever you know what you want but are not sure how to ask for it, or you keep getting so-so answers and suspect the prompt is the problem.
| # | What you do | What you should see |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Create the persona with the quickstart: Name Prompt Builder, Title Prompt-writing assistant, Primary Goal from the Persona Builder Kit | The minimum fields in |
| 2 | Click Optimize with Smith, review, and Save | A working persona |
| 3 | Select it, dump raw context, and say "give me the best prompt for this" | A strong prompt |
| 4 | Paste that prompt into a fresh chat and run it | Better output downstream |
You end up with: an assistant that writes your prompts for you.
Stand up your personal FAQ assistant an assistant tuned to your job's repeat questions Setup ▸
Purpose: Build a little assistant scoped to your own job's repeat questions, answering only from your trusted files. Cuts the "where do I find / how do I do" interruptions.
When to use this: When you (or your team) answer the same handful of questions over and over and want a self-serve way to get those answers from your own documents.
| # | What you do | What you should see |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gather the questions you get asked, or ask, repeatedly | A list |
| 2 | Put your reference docs and Me file in one folder | Source material ready |
| 3 | Build a persona instructed to answer only from those files | A scoped assistant |
| 4 | Ask it your recurring questions | Instant answers |
You end up with: an assistant tuned to your job's repeat questions.
Build institutional memory from a long chat your best thinking turned into reusable knowledge Few steps ▸
Purpose: Stop losing your best thinking in chat history. Capture a valuable working session as a file and make it a permanent, queryable part of your workspace.
When to use this: After any long, productive session, a strategy back-and-forth, a worked-through analysis, that you will want to refer back to later.
| # | What you do | What you should see |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Do a long, valuable working session in one chat | Lots of good thinking |
| 2 | Export the chat to Word or PDF | A document |
| 3 | Upload it to a workspace folder | Searchable |
| 4 | Reference it in future chats | Nothing gets lost |
You end up with: your best thinking turned into reusable knowledge.
See the Whole Setup in Action
The recipes above are building blocks. Here is what it looks like when the foundational ones run together as a single setup workflow, the Me file, then My Voice, then a real draft that uses both.
Three recipes, one continuous workflow
Watch the Me file, My Voice, and a real draft come together, so you can see how these foundational recipes stack into one setup.
Next Steps: Build the persona and Me file recipes first; everything else gets easier once they exist. Then move on to Communications recipes. For single one-prompt moves, browse the Playbook.
Related Articles
Recipes 2: Communications
The next category of multi-step recipes.
The Persona Builder Kit
The ready-made personas these recipes help you build.
The Playbook
Looking for single one-prompt moves instead?
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