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A README that gets someone running in five minutes

Give Claude the facts about your project and get a README in Markdown that starts with install and first run, explains how it works in five sentences, and says honestly when not to use it.

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Output
Markdown
Written with
Claude Fable 5.1
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The prompt

Write the README for this project. Someone should be able to go from landing on the repo to running it in five minutes.

What it is: [ONE LINE]
Who it's for: [e.g. developers who maintain Node projects]
How to install: [COMMANDS]
The one command that shows it working: [COMMAND AND WHAT IT PRINTS]
Things people get wrong: [LIST, or "not sure yet"]
Licence: [MIT, Apache 2.0, etc.]

Structure:
- One sentence at the top saying what it does and for whom. No badges above it.
- "Install" and "First run" as the first two sections. Real commands in code blocks, with the expected output under them.
- "How it works" in five sentences or fewer.
- "Options" as a table if there are more than three, otherwise a list.
- "When not to use it": two or three honest cases.
- Contributing and licence at the end, short.

Write it in plain sentences. No "blazing fast", no emoji, no marketing. If I didn't give you a fact, leave a placeholder like [TODO: ...] rather than inventing one.
  • readme
  • documentation
  • open-source

What it generates

Example
readme.mdDownload .md

depsweep

Finds the dependencies in a Node project that nothing imports any more, and removes them if you ask it to. For people who maintain projects that have been around long enough to collect some.

Install

npm install --save-dev depsweep

Or run it without installing:

npx depsweep scan

Node 18 or newer. No other requirements.

First run

From the root of your project:

$ depsweep scan
Scanning 142 files in ./src ...
Found 3 unused dependencies:
  lodash      last imported 14 months ago
  moment      no imports found
  left-pad    no imports found
Run "depsweep remove" to uninstall them.

Nothing is changed by scan. When the list looks right:

$ depsweep remove --yes
Removed lodash, moment, left-pad
package.json and yarn.lock updated
Saved 4.2 MB from node_modules

Without --yes it asks before touching anything.

How it works

depsweep reads every import and require in the folders listed in your package.json files field (or ./src when there is none). It compares that list with dependencies and devDependencies. A package with no imports is reported as unused. Packages that are used only by config files, scripts or other tools are listed under "possibly used" instead, and never removed automatically. The "last imported" date comes from your git history.

Options

Option What it does Default
--dir <path> Folder to scan, repeatable ./src
--ignore <name> Keep a package even if it looks unused, repeatable none
--json Print the result as JSON for other tools off
--yes Skip the confirmation on remove off

When not to use it

  • Monorepos where packages import each other through workspace links. depsweep sees those as external and may report them as unused. [TODO: link the issue once it exists]
  • Projects that load modules by name at runtime (plugin systems, require(variable)). depsweep cannot follow those.
  • Right before a release. Run it early in a cycle, when there is time to notice something missing.

Contributing

Open an issue before a large change so we can talk about it. Run npm test before you push; the suite takes about ten seconds.

Licence

MIT. See LICENSE.

NoteThis is an example. Results change between runs and model versions. Claude Prompts is a fan project and is not affiliated with Anthropic.

Getting the most from this prompt

Five minutes is the test

Most READMEs open with a paragraph about philosophy, then badges, then a feature list, and the install command is somewhere around the second screen. The structure in this prompt puts "Install" and "First run" at the top, with the real output under each command, so a visitor can tell in a minute whether the tool does what they need. Everything else comes after, and most people never read it. That's fine.

Give it real output

The single most useful thing you can paste into the prompt is what the tool actually prints on a first run. Claude uses it verbatim under the command, and a reader comparing their screen to the README knows at once whether things worked. If you paste nothing, you get a placeholder, which is the honest alternative.

The honest section

"When not to use it" is the part maintainers skip and readers remember. Two or three real limitations, stated plainly, save a lot of issues from people who tried the tool on the wrong thing. If you don't know the limitations yet, say so in the prompt and Claude leaves a [TODO] rather than inventing a reassuring sentence.

The output is a Markdown file. Drop it in the repo as README.md, and the rendered version on this page is what people will see on GitHub, near enough.

How to use this prompt

  1. [01] Copy

    Copy the prompt

    Use the copy button above. The full text is included, nothing is cut off.

  2. [02] Fill in

    Replace the yellow parts

    Everything highlighted in yellow is a placeholder. Swap it for your own topic, audience or data.

  3. [03] Vote

    Run it in Claude and vote

    If the result helped, press the heart. Votes decide which prompts make the weekly top 10.

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