# Your AI Isn’t Broken. Your Prompt Is. > Vague prompts give generic WordPress edits, whichever AI you connect. Garbage in, garbage out, with examples of the prompts that get useful work from an agent. Source: https://www.respira.press/blog/your-ai-isnt-broken-your-prompt-is --- WordPress is more powerful than it's ever been. AI coding tools have basically solved the coding problem. Respira just shipped 103 MCP tools across 11 page builders with full-fidelity snapshots and one-click rollback. And yet. Someone will connect the latest flagship Claude Code model on thinking-hard mode to their WordPress site through 103 MCP tools, type “make my homepage better”, and then blame the AI when the result is generic. That's not a tools problem. That's a GiGo problem. ## Garbage In, Garbage Out GiGo was coined in 1957\. It predates the internet, personal computers, and your page builder. And it's more relevant now than ever, because the tools got so good that the bottleneck quietly shifted to the other side of the keyboard. When the tool was a hammer, you didn't blame it for a crooked nail. But when the tool talks back in perfect paragraphs and sounds more confident than your project manager, it's easy to forget that it's still waiting for you to aim. [!](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s%5F!AWyw!,f%5Fauto,q%5Fauto:good,fl%5Fprogressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6ac57695-d68f-480b-8e89-df5d02048780%5F2752x1536.png) ## What GiGo looks like in practice **Garbage in:** > “make my services page look better” The AI hears: change things. Which things? Better how? More modern? More minimal? More like a competitor you haven't mentioned? It doesn't know your brand, your audience, or what “better” means to you. So it guesses. And guesses are generic by definition. **Gold in:** > “Rewrite the hero section on my services page. Keep the h1 but rewrite the subtitle to focus on client outcomes, not features. Same Divi section structure. Match the tone of the About page. Don't touch anything below the fold.” Same AI. Same tools. Same page. Wildly different output. The difference is the instruction, not the intelligence. ## The three things you're skipping **Context.** The AI doesn't know your business. It doesn't know your services page gets 40% of its traffic from Google Ads and visitors bounce at the hero. If you don't say it, it doesn't exist. **Constraints.** AI with no boundaries produces average work because average is the center of its training data. “Build me a landing page” is a prayer. “Single section, one headline, one paragraph, one CTA, black on white, under 50 words” is creative direction. **References.** “Make it modern” means nothing. “Match the layout of stripe.com/payments with our color palette in a Bricks section” means everything. AI is great at pattern matching. Give it a pattern. ## The 5-second test Before you hit enter, ask yourself: could three different people read this prompt and imagine three completely different results? If yes, it's garbage. Not because it's stupid. Because it's ambiguous. And ambiguity is the raw material of mediocre output. ## The format that works > **What:** specific action on specific element > **Where:** which page, which section, which builder > **Why:** the goal you're solving for > **How:** tone, style reference, constraints > **Don't touch:** what stays the same [!](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s%5F!Wrr4!,f%5Fauto,q%5Fauto:good,fl%5Fprogressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F927922ae-eb30-430f-aae1-38dd67c889a1%5F2752x1536.png) Example: > Rewrite the pricing section on /services. Bricks section, three columns. Current copy lists features but sales calls show clients care about time saved. Rewrite each column to lead with the outcome. Keep layout, buttons, and pricing numbers. Leave the FAQ below it alone. That prompt takes 30 seconds longer to write and saves you three rounds of “**no, not like that.**” ## The oldest law in computing WordPress is powerful. AI models are powerful. Respira connects them with 103 tools across 11 builders and a safety net that captures every edit. But none of that fixes “make it better.” You're the creative director. The AI is waiting for direction. GiGo. 1957\. Still undefeated. --- *[respira.press](https://respira.press/) \- 103 tools. 11 builders. The safety net is there. The creative direction is yours.* Found this useful? Share it. ## Join the *conversation* 0 comments · Respira account #### Sign in with your Respira account Comments are tied to your Respira login, the same account you use for the dashboard and plugin. No third-party sign-in, no scraping. [Sign in](https://www.respira.press/login?next=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.respira.press%2Fblog%2Fyour-ai-isnt-broken-your-prompt-is%23comments) [Create an account](https://www.respira.press/signup?next=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.respira.press%2Fblog%2Fyour-ai-isnt-broken-your-prompt-is%23comments) No comments yet. Be the first to weigh in. ## Keep *reading* [ § SUBSTACK 20 million lines of code, and what building Respira.press has taught me so far What Respira for WordPress is in a nutshell, how it started with one task at my day job, and what the people using it say, in their own words. Oct 3, 2026 ](https://www.respira.press/blog/20-million-lines-of-code-and-what)[ § SUBSTACK The gold rush and the undo button A note on the strange moment WordPress is having, and what I hope we do with it Jun 8, 2026 ](https://www.respira.press/blog/the-gold-rush-and-the-undo-button)[ § SUBSTACK 100 strangers trusted me with their websites What I learned selling software for 5 months Apr 4, 2026 ](https://www.respira.press/blog/100-strangers-trusted-me-with-their) ### You're not the only one *talking* to WordPress. The Respira community is where agency owners debug Divi migrations at 11pm, where vibe coders swap prompts that actually ship, and where the roadmap gets written out loud. *Breathe with us.* Lines of code pushed 31,257,002 Live from the ecosystem · updates as the agent ships WordPress sites connected 3,747 Real sites, run by the people in these rooms Find us wherever you already are [ Slack Async threads, release-day huddles, and the #show-your-work channel that never sleeps. Join ](https://go.respira.cafe/slack) [ Discord Live voice on release days, screenshare debugging, and the vibe-coder corner that's always buzzing. Join ](https://go.respira.cafe/respira-discord) [ Reddit Questions, answers and build logs in the open, where the thread is still there months later. Join ](https://www.reddit.com/r/RespiraforWordPress/) [ Facebook group Agency owners and site owners comparing notes on running AI against real WordPress sites. 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