Software Development AI prompts

Prompts for developers: explaining unfamiliar code, writing tests, reviewing a change, debugging from an error message, drafting documentation and planning a refactor. Always run and review generated code yourself.

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107 Software Development prompts

Add useful logging, metrics, and tracing to a servicePlans the instrumentation a service needs so you can answer what broke, where, and for whom when something goes wrong.
Analyze a suspicious email a user reportedBreaks down a reported email's headers, links, and content into a phishing verdict and clear next steps.
Analyze logs to find what went wrongReads logs to identify errors, patterns, and the likely root cause.
Analyze security threats and vulnerabilitiesIdentifies vulnerabilities and threats and builds a prioritized remediation plan.
Analyze test run results to find failure patterns and gapsTurns raw CI test results into clusters of failures, likely flaky tests, coverage gaps, and a prioritized fix list.
Assess whether an application is ready to migrate to the cloudA readiness assessment and migration approach for one application, with dependencies, risks, effort, and the questions to answer first.
Audit a codebase for bugs, risks, and tech debtA systematic review of a repository with prioritized findings and a remediation plan.
Audit Linux password and login security settingsA checklist-driven review of password policy, PAM, account aging, and file permissions on Linux servers, with safe fixes.
Audit my project's dependencies for security risks and bloatA prioritized review of outdated, vulnerable, duplicated, and unused packages, with a safe update order and lockfile hygiene.
Audit the developer experience of my software package or APIA structured review of your docs, onboarding, community signals, and competitor position, with a prioritized list of developer-experience fixes.
Break a feature into small, shippable pull requestsSplits a large feature into a sequence of small, independently mergeable PRs with a safe order and clear scope for each.
Break my first coding project into small buildable stepsA milestone plan where every step leaves you with a working program and tells you what to learn next.
Build a hardened golden machine image with PackerA Packer HCL2 template, unattended install config, and pipeline plan for reproducible, hardened VM or cloud images.
Build a mobile app testing checklist that catches common bugsA mobile-specific test checklist and device matrix covering the bugs desktop testing misses: interruptions, connectivity, permissions, and OS fragmentation.
Build a working app, tool, or game from a descriptionTurns a plain-English idea into a complete, runnable app — web tool, dashboard, or browser game.
Check an admin script or command before running itExplains what an unfamiliar script or command will actually do, flags risky lines, and suggests a safer way to run it.
Choose an open-source licenseCompares licenses for your project and explains obligations and compatibility.
Compare virtualization platforms for my infrastructureA side-by-side comparison of hypervisor and virtualization options against your workloads, budget, skills, and migration constraints, with a recommendation.
Convert code to another language or frameworkIdiomatic translation of code between languages or frameworks, with notes on differences.
Create a guided CodeTour walkthrough of my codebaseA valid VS Code CodeTour .tour file that walks new developers through how your codebase works, step by step.
Create a test plan and test casesA risk-based test strategy with test cases for functional, integration, and end-to-end testing.
Debug an error and find the root causeReproduces, isolates, and fixes a bug — with a test to prevent it coming back.
Define SLOs and alerts that only page for real problemsSets service level objectives and turns them into alert rules that catch user-facing problems without waking people up for noise.
Deprecate an API endpoint with a migration guidePlans the deprecation of an API endpoint or field and writes the timeline, announcement, and migration guide for its consumers.
Design a caching strategy with safe invalidationDecides what to cache, where, and for how long, with invalidation rules and failure modes so the cache doesn't serve wrong data.
Design a database schemaEntities, relationships, keys, indexes, and migrations for your data model.
Design a software architecture and weigh trade-offsArchitecture options, trade-offs, and a recommended design for a system.
Design an APIResources, endpoints, request/response shapes, errors, auth, and versioning for a REST or GraphQL API.
Design consistent API error responses developers can act onTurns unhelpful API errors into a consistent format with clear codes, statuses, and messages that tell callers exactly what to fix.
Design input validation rules for my appConsistent validation rules for every input across client, server, and database, with security checks, error messages, and tests.
Design tenant isolation for my multi-tenant SaaS appA recommended tenancy model with data isolation, noisy-neighbor controls, and tests that prove one customer can't see another's data.
Diagnose and fix a flaky testWorks out why a test passes and fails intermittently, how to reproduce it, and how to fix the cause rather than adding retries.
Diagnose and improve my mobile app's performanceA performance review of an iOS or Android app covering startup time, jank, memory, battery, network, and crashes, with tools and a fix plan.
Diagnose slow launches and API cold starts in my mobile appA codebase-specific diagnosis of startup time, serverless cold starts, and network waste, with fixes ranked by impact on perceived speed.
Explain what a piece of code doesPlain-language walkthrough of unfamiliar code: purpose, flow, key parts, and gotchas.
Find and fix a race condition or concurrency bugAnalyzes code for race conditions, deadlocks, and lost updates, explains the exact interleaving that fails, and proposes a safe fix.
Find which change caused a regressionCreates a systematic plan to pinpoint the commit, deploy, or config change that broke something that used to work.
Fix a Git problemStep-by-step help for merge conflicts, undoing mistakes, branching, and recovering lost work.
Generate realistic test or mock dataRealistic synthetic datasets in CSV, JSON, or SQL for testing and demos.
Get a beginner-friendly code review of my first projectA ranked set of the five improvements that matter most, explained simply, plus what you did well and what to learn next.
Get unstuck on a coding error with hints instead of the answerA plain-English explanation of your error and step-by-step hints, so you learn to debug instead of copying a fix.
Implement a feature from a spec, with testsPlans and writes production-quality code for a feature, including tests and edge cases.
Install and configure an SSL/TLS certificate on my serverStep-by-step HTTPS setup for your exact server and software, including renewal, redirects, and how to verify it worked.
Investigate a suspicious sign-in on a user accountWorks through risky sign-in signals like impossible travel or MFA spam to decide if an account is compromised.
Learn a programming language or conceptA patient coding tutor that explains concepts, gives exercises, and reviews your solutions.
Make background jobs and webhooks safe to retryDesigns idempotency, retries, and dead-letter handling so jobs, queue consumers, and webhooks never double-charge or lose work.
Make my research analysis reproducible and shareableOrganizes my project's data, code, and documentation so others (and future me) can rerun the analysis and get the same results.
Plan a feature flag rollout and rollbackDesigns a staged release behind a feature flag, with audience steps, metrics to watch, kill criteria, and flag cleanup.
Plan a major framework or dependency upgradeBuilds an incremental upgrade path for a framework, language, or library version, with breaking changes mapped to your codebase.
Plan a time-boxed technical spikeScopes an investigation with a clear question, time-box, and exit criteria, and gives a template to report findings.
Plan a touchscreen UI for an ESP32 or other microcontrollerA memory-aware screen design, library choice, and code structure for a display-based embedded project.
Plan a zero-downtime database migrationCreates a step-by-step expand-and-contract plan for a schema or data change, with backfill, verification, and rollback at each step.
Plan cross-browser and cross-device compatibility testingA prioritized browser and device test matrix, tooling choices, and checklist so your site or app works for your real users.
Plan load and performance testingLoad test scenarios, targets, tooling, and how to read the results.
Plan the architecture of a Unity game projectA Unity-specific architecture plan: folder and assembly structure, data with ScriptableObjects, scene flow, and system boundaries with C# signatures.
Practice incident response with a simulated system outageAn interactive, turn-by-turn outage drill with realistic symptoms, consequences for your actions, and a scored debrief at the end.
Protect my AI chatbot or LLM feature from prompt injection and data leaksA layered security plan and code-level checklist for LLM endpoints: injection defenses, data leakage controls, abuse limits, and logging.
Reduce cloud costs and right-size capacityFinds waste and optimization opportunities in your cloud spend.
Refactor code to be cleaner and easier to maintainImproves structure, naming, and design without changing behavior.
Reply to code review comments I disagree withDrafts calm, evidence-based replies to review feedback so you can resolve disagreements without stalling the pull request.
Respond to a secret leaked in a code repositoryWalks you through containing a leaked API key, password, or token: revoke, rotate, check for misuse, and clean up history.
Respond to a security vulnerability report from an outside researcherA triage checklist, severity rating, and replies for a reported vulnerability, from first acknowledgment to fix and disclosure.
Restyle a UI component to match a reference designRefactor a component's markup, styles, and accessibility to match a design-system reference while keeping its props, state, and logic intact.
Review AI-generated code before I merge itChecks code written by an AI assistant for the specific mistakes these tools make: invented APIs, shallow tests, and hidden security gaps.
Review an RPA workflow for errors, fragility, and best practicesA structured code review of a UiPath, Power Automate, or similar bot workflow, with issues ranked and explained before any changes.
Review every change since my last release before shippingA pre-release review of all changes since a tag: missing translations, simplifications, breaking changes, security, and a draft changelog.
Review firewall or cloud security group rules for risky openingsAudits a rule set for overly broad access, exposed admin ports, and stale rules, and proposes a tighter version.
Review my code for bugs, security, and qualityA thorough code review with prioritized findings and suggested fixes.
Review my customer-facing chatbot for security risksThreat review for an AI support bot covering prompt injection, data leaks, abuse, and unsafe actions, with prioritized fixes and tests.
Set up CI/CD and infrastructure as codeCI/CD pipelines and IaC templates with environments, checks, and rollback.
Set up environment config and secrets across dev, staging, and productionA clean plan for environment variables, secrets handling, and Docker config so each environment works and nothing sensitive leaks.
Set up experiment tracking for a machine learning training runStep-by-step setup to log metrics, hyperparameters, and artifacts from your training script, locally or on a cluster.
Solve a NixOS problem the declarative, reproducible wayA NixOS-native fix for a configuration, package, or service problem that survives rebuilds and can be rolled back.
Speed up slow codeFinds performance bottlenecks and suggests faster approaches with measurable trade-offs.
Summarize a cyber threat report into insights and actionsDistills a threat intelligence report into its key findings, attacker techniques, indicators, and the actions your security team should take.
Summarize a malware analysis into IOCs and detection stepsTurns sandbox reports, threat intel, and analyst notes into a structured malware summary with indicators, ATT&CK mapping, and next actions.
Threat-model a system (STRIDE)Systematically identifies threats to a system and the controls to mitigate them.
Translate app string files without breaking keys or placeholdersTranslates localization files (.strings, JSON, XML, .po) while preserving keys, placeholders, comments, and syntax exactly.
Triage a security alert and decide if it is a real threatWalks through a SIEM or EDR alert to a true/false positive call, a severity, and the next actions to take.
Triage defects and assess regression riskPrioritizes bugs by severity and impact and flags regression risk.
Troubleshoot a network connectivity or performance problemA structured, layer-by-layer diagnosis plan with the commands to run, what each result means, and the likely fix.
Turn a threat report into Sigma detection rulesExtracts behaviors from a threat report, maps them to MITRE ATT&CK, and writes tuned Sigma rules with test notes.
Understand a new codebase quicklyMaps an unfamiliar repository: architecture, key flows, conventions, and where to start.
Vet an open-source library before adding itEvaluates a dependency for maintenance health, security, license fit, and lock-in so you can decide whether to adopt it.
Write a clear commit messageConventional Commits–style messages from a diff or a description of changes.
Write a clear, reproducible bug reportBug reports developers can act on immediately — steps, expected vs. actual, environment, and evidence.
Write a detection query or SIEM rule from a descriptionTurns a threat you want to catch into a working query for your SIEM, with tuning notes and test cases.
Write a getting-started guide for new engineers on my teamCreates a practical onboarding doc for your codebase: local setup, architecture tour, workflows, and a safe first task.
Write a GitHub Sponsors page for my open-source workSponsor bio, tiers, impact story, and update templates that attract sponsors.
Write a Nuclei template to detect a known vulnerabilityA working, low-false-positive Nuclei YAML template for detecting a specific vulnerability on systems you're authorized to test.
Write a pull request descriptionA PR description reviewers love: what, why, how to test, and risks.
Write a README and publish my first coding project on GitHubA clear README, a safe publishing checklist, and a short post to share what you built.
Write a script to automate a repetitive taskBash, Python, or PowerShell scripts that automate a task safely, with instructions to run them.
Write a security finding for a penetration test reportTurns your notes on a vulnerability into a clear, professional finding with risk rating, evidence, impact, and fix steps.
Write a Semgrep rule to catch a risky code patternProduces a working Semgrep rule with test cases, so you can block a bug or security pattern across your codebase.
Write a style guide that documents my app's existing design codeReverse-engineers colors, typography, spacing, and component patterns from your codebase into a STYLE_GUIDE.md developers and AI agents can follow.
Write a technical design doc (RFC) reviewers can approveTurns a rough technical plan into a structured RFC with alternatives, risks, and open questions reviewers can sign off on.
Write an incident postmortem and runbookA blameless postmortem with timeline, root cause, actions, and a runbook update.
Write an instructions file for an AI coding agent (CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md)Concise, high-signal project instructions that make AI coding agents follow your conventions.
Write an on-call handoff noteSummarizes your on-call shift into a handoff the next engineer can act on: open issues, watch items, and context.
Write and explain a regular expressionBuilds a regex from a description, explains it piece by piece, and tests it.
Write documentation, a README, or API docsGenerates clear technical documentation from your code or notes.
Write kind, actionable review comments on a teammate's pull requestTurns your rough review notes into clear comments labeled by severity, so the author knows what blocks merging and what doesn't.
Write or review a network switch configuration changeA vendor-aware switch config for your requirement, plus a pre-change review, rollback steps, and verification commands.
Write PowerShell commands to silently install or update softwareUnattended install or update commands for Windows using winget or Chocolatey, with verification and a fallback when silent install isn't possible.
Write precise TypeScript types for my data and APIsSafer, readable TypeScript types that rule out impossible states, replace unsafe casts, and come with compile-time tests.
Write unit tests for my codeComprehensive unit tests covering happy paths, edge cases, and failures.

Software Development AI prompts

107 Software Development prompts

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