T | TERSE | ISSUE 011 · SEPTEMBER 2026 |
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THE TERSE LETTER · 3 MIN READ The terse mindsetFewer tokens isn't just cheaper. It's clearer thinking — for you and the model. |
Ten issues in, here's the thing I most want you to take away: cutting tokens was never really about the money. It's about clarity. The discipline that saves tokens is the same discipline that makes you understood — by the model, and by everyone else. |
| 01 | Terse is a thinking tool |
If you can't say it short, you don't know it yet.Vague, padded prompts are a symptom of vague thinking. Forcing yourself to cut the filler forces you to decide what you actually want. The model answers better — and so do people — when you've done that work first. |
✗ PADDED THINKING "maybe look into…" "some kind of improvement" "it would be nice if" vague scope |
| ✓ CLEAR THINKING "cut the runtime" "under 200ms" "required by Friday" exact target |
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Make it a default, not an effort.You won't keep editing every prompt by hand — nobody does. The point of Terse is to make terseness automatic, so the discipline runs in the background while you focus on the actual problem. |
Set your mode once. Terse keeps every prompt lean while you think about the work. |
Three things to do right now. |
1 | Pick your default mode Soft for polish, Normal for everyday, Aggressive for drafts. Set it and stop thinking about it. |
2 | Re-read Issue 001 The caching fix is still the single highest-leverage change. Start there if you haven't. |
3 | Tell one person The dev next to you is almost certainly overpaying. Send them terseai.org. |
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macOS · Free forever tier · 1,500 optimizations/week |
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NEXT WEEK New series coming. We're starting a fresh run on prompt patterns that get better answers. Same letter, same day, every week. Glad you're here. |
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Thanks for reading all ten. Stay terse. — James
Builder of Terse · terseai.org |
