How to ask a good question when you're stuck

A vague question gets a vague answer. Saying "it's not working" tells a person, or a tool, almost nothing about what's actually wrong. A good question has three parts: what you expected to happen, what happened instead, and what you already tried before asking.

This structure works whether you're asking a coach, a friend, or a tool like Claude Code. I run through these same three questions in my own head before I type anything into a tool. It forces you to slow down and look closely at the problem before handing it off, and often you'll spot the fix yourself just by writing the question out clearly.

Try this today: next time something breaks, write down those three parts before you ask anyone for help — expected, actual, already tried. If you solve it yourself while writing, great, that's the habit working. If not, you now have a clear question that gets you a clear answer instead of a back-and-forth guessing game.