Prompt Builder

The Power Mode Taxonomy

41 entries, sorted into five families. 13 of them are built into the Builder.

Before any of this was built, the vocabulary was too broad and mixed several different kinds of instruction together. This is the sort that fixed it: every name that was in circulation, filed by what it actually changes about the answer.

What being on this list does and does not mean

Filing a name here was a classification decision. It records what kind of instruction the name is, and whether the vocabulary needed it as a separate entry at all. It involved no model runs and produced no evidence.

A built mode is a different thing. It has a definition the Builder reads, a named failure mode, a stated situation where it fires, and a source you can check — a chapter of the book, or a Test Lab cycle. Three modes in this project have been through a blind test; the rest of the built catalogue comes from the book.

So an entry marked classified, not built is not a mode waiting its turn, and it is not one that failed. It is a name that was sorted and left where it was. Some of them would earn a place if they were tested. Nothing here says which.

Family A — Analysis Modes

Change how the problem is examined.

Essential

The names the vocabulary could not do without.

Useful

Real behaviours, kept in the vocabulary, not all of them built.

Specialized

Narrower. Worth knowing, worth reaching for rarely.

Family B — Evaluation Modes

Challenge, verify, or critique the result.

Essential

The names the vocabulary could not do without.

Useful

Real behaviours, kept in the vocabulary, not all of them built.

Specialized

Narrower. Worth knowing, worth reaching for rarely.

Family C — Presentation Modes

Change how the answer is communicated.

Essential

The names the vocabulary could not do without.

Useful

Real behaviours, kept in the vocabulary, not all of them built.

Specialized

Narrower. Worth knowing, worth reaching for rarely.

Family D — Interaction Modes

Change how you and the AI work together.

Essential

The names the vocabulary could not do without.

Useful

Real behaviours, kept in the vocabulary, not all of them built.

Workflow Techniques — Not Individual Power Modes

These are sequences you run, not instructions you add to one prompt. They are listed here because they were proposed as modes and ruled out as a category error, which is a decision worth being able to look up.

Family E — Specialized Frameworks

Established named methods, useful but narrower, and better invoked with attribution.

Built, but not in the sort above

The taxonomy was finished before the Test Lab ran. These modes were admitted afterwards, on test evidence, and were never filed into a family:

They are the reason the built count above is not simply a subset of the list. If the families are ever re-sorted, these two belong in it.

Build: PMF-046-2026.10.02