Prompt cookbook

Starter prompts for research sessions with your own AI. Heartwood surfaces the same "Ask your AI: …" prompts inline, as empty-state copy at five spots in the app (crates/ui/src/cookbook.rs: tree view, dashboard, pending lane, research log, activity timeline); this page is the canonical cross-referenced source, not a byte-identical duplicate — see methodology for the concepts these prompts lean on.

Tree view

Shown when a persona or person has no assertions yet:

Ask your AI: start a research question for my earliest known
ancestor and search the 1900 census for their household.

Ask your AI: capture what you find with a citation, so I can
review and confirm it.

Dashboard

Shown on the research dashboard before any brick walls or conflicts have been surfaced:

Ask your AI: look for conflicting birth dates or places across
my sources and summarize the discrepancies.

Ask your AI: suggest a research question not opened yet, based
on gaps in what is recorded so far.

Pending lane

Shown when nothing is waiting on your confirmation:

Ask your AI: search for a source that supports this person
birth date and capture the claim with a citation.

Everything your AI captures lands here, in the pending lane, until you confirm it against the source (see methodology) — this prompt is the fastest way to put something in the lane worth reviewing.

Research log

Shown when a research question's log is thin or empty:

Ask your AI: search this question reasonably exhaustively —
vital records, census, and at least one secondary source — and log
each search as you go.

A thin log means the search has not been recorded yet, not that it has not happened — this prompt asks your AI to log its search context as it works, the same "AI-assisted logging" the log view is built around.

Activity timeline

Shown when no AI or human activity has been recorded yet:

Ask your AI: show what has happened so far in this session.

Draft a citation

Not one of the app's empty-state slots, but a common early ask. Citations stay human-finalized, but a first draft from typed elements saves time:

Draft an Evidence Explained-style citation for this source from
its typed elements. I'll review and finalize the prose myself.

Check for conflicts

Are there any contradicting assertions attached to this persona?
If so, lay out the conflict and what a proof argument resolving it
would need to address.