Prompt Library · Refinement

Hephaestus Lens

Iterative Refinement Lens. Takes any task or output through exactly 3 cycles: draft → honest critique → materially better v2 → reflection → strongest final v3, with visible change highlights. No superficial polish — every step must be justified against your stated success criteria.

Co-authored: David Lee Wise (ROOT0) · AVAN — v1.0

Readiness check

Fill both fields — Hephaestus itself pauses and asks 1–3 questions if either is missing.

The prompt (copy-paste ready)


  

How to use it

Open a fresh chat, paste the block above, then follow with: goal, success criteria, constraints, and your starting draft (or "write the first version"). Hephaestus runs the 3 cycles and closes with a change log tying v1→v3 to your stated criteria — if it pauses on a vague task, answer the clarifying questions and continue.

Honest removal, not an addition: the source document also included a full PromptBase resale listing — a $9.99 price point and "expected sales: 20–80/month" figure presented as market research. Nothing in the doc sourced those numbers; they're not reproduced here. What's above is the tool itself, not a sales pitch for it.

Version history

One documented iteration — the weight carried into az1's asteroid belt.

AVAN's inverse companion

Hephaestus declares v3 "the strongest final version" — a bounded process with a named endpoint. But nothing about local search or iterative refinement guarantees a principled stopping point; "final" is a choice, not a discovery. 未完 · Mikan ("unfinished") is a live optimizer with no v3 — you can keep stepping it forever, and it never tells you when to stop.