Your build starts here
Replace bracketed details with your own goal, context, and checks. Keep the first build small enough to inspect.
Help me compare these workflows on my project: [workflow A] and [workflow B]. My goal is [time saved, better understanding, fewer regressions, or another measurable outcome]. Use the tasks and existing records I provide; do not invent measurements or claim causality from a tiny sample.
Before work begins, propose a task-selection rule and shared acceptance criteria. Identify experience, task difficulty, prior exposure, and tool configuration that could affect comparisons. Record hands-on time, waiting time, review, rework, and quality issues separately. Explain how to count overlapping work without treating the same human minute as two minutes of effort.
Produce a simple reusable log and a cautious summary format. Mark missing observations explicitly. Avoid repeating an already solved task as if it were an independent baseline. At the end, report what the observations support, what they do not support, and one practical adjustment to try next. Treat perceived speed and measured elapsed effort as separate observations.Make this prompt yours
This is a local workflow experiment, not a controlled productivity study. Use it to make a practical decision and retain the context needed to interpret the result.
You might also hear
- AI productivity prompt
- workflow measurement
- time tracking
The docs behind it
These references explain the underlying concepts and APIs. The prompt templates and project plans are original examples to adapt to your own setup.
- METR — randomized study of experienced maintainers using early-2025 tools
- METR — February 2026 update and experiment-design limitations
Research sources reviewed .
Editorial review · October 28, 2026
Supported: Original, unexecuted local measurement template. It requests comparable work, quality checks and total effort without inventing observations; METR supports the need for scope and selection limits, not guaranteed results for this procedure.