Axel VerneFive prompts that make a new agent useful in ten minutes.
You just got an AI agent running — now what? No setup, no configuration, no code: copy a prompt, fill in the brackets, press Enter. These are the five fastest wins from a 58-prompt field-tested library.
1. The Daily Briefing
2. The Priority Setter
3. The Meeting Prep Assistant
4. The Email Polisher
5. The research assistant
Prompts 6–10
The book's next five cover the home-and-life and writing workflows: the meal planner, the trip outline, the unwrapper, the editor, and the drafter — each with its full copy-ready prompt and a behind-the-scenes breakdown of what the agent does with it.
They're all in Chapter 3 of Hermes Agent for Complete Beginners, alongside the install guide, the safety walkthrough, and the context that makes each one click.
The pattern behind all five
Describe what you need in plain language. Add the context that matters — budget, deadline, audience. Let the agent do the heavy lifting. The more specific you are, the better the result — but even a vague ask gets you most of the way there.
Frequently asked questions
What prompts should I run first with a new AI agent?
Start with the Daily Briefing above — it produces something useful in under two minutes and teaches you how the agent handles structured requests. Then the Priority Setter with your real to-do list. Five working prompts on day one is a better outcome than an hour of asking "what can you do?"
Do I need to install anything to use these prompts?
No. These five work in any capable AI assistant — chat window or local agent — because they're plain-language instructions with bracketed placeholders. The local-agent versions (with calendar, file, and terminal access) are covered in the book's setup chapters.
Why do the prompts have [brackets] in them?
The brackets are placeholders you fill with your specifics — your city, your task list, your topic. This is what makes a prompt re-runnable: save it once, change the bracket contents each time. It's the difference between chatting and operating.
How is this different from just asking the AI normally?
Each prompt here has three things a casual question lacks: a defined role, specific input, and a hard output constraint ("under 100 words"). Constraints are what turn essay-length responses into usable drafts — and they're the core technique behind all 58 prompts in the book.
Are these prompts free to use and share?
Yes — copy them, modify them, share them with anyone starting out. The five on this page (and the ten in the free sample) are free with no email wall. The full 58-prompt library with when-to-use notes and failure modes is in the book.
Where this came from
These five prompts come from Chapter 3 of Hermes Agent for Complete Beginners — the book that takes you from "I've never installed anything like this" to a working AI assistant on your own machine in one weekend. Every step's expected screen result, a plain-English glossary, troubleshooting for the five most common install problems, and an honest map of what comes next.
Get the book — $12 on GumroadWant to see the rest? Browse all 58 prompt titles in the searchable preview — the full copy-ready text of every one lives in the book.