The Tireless Apprentice

Two things make a multi-step errand work here. The first is that your standing rules belong in Custom Instructions rather than in the prompt - put "never send, book, buy or submit anything without showing me first and waiting" there once, and it rides along in every chat, including the ones where you forget to say it. The second is to split the errand into two messages: the first asks for a numbered research plan and nothing else, and you correct that plan before any work begins. Switch web search on for anything that has changed recently, and ask for links inline, beside each claim, rather than gathered tidily at the end, so you can see which statement came from which page. For a report you will keep working on, ask for it in Canvas.

From the book Use web search for up-to-date facts and ask it to list its sources with links. Save your standing rules - for example "Never book or send anything without my approval" - in Custom Instructions so they apply to every chat.

• Put "never send or buy without my approval" in Custom Instructions.
• Ask for the research plan first, in a message of its own.
• Request links inline, beside each claim, not pooled at the end.
• Check which connections your app really has before trusting an errand.
• You press Send. Always. No exception for a good draft.

**Do this once, in Settings, under Custom Instructions - and every errand you ever send inherits it:**

> When a task needs several steps, show me a numbered plan first and wait for my approval. Never send, submit, book or buy anything on my behalf. Put the link beside each fact rather than in a pile at the end. If you could not find something, say so instead of filling the gap.

**Then, with web search switched on, send this - and only this:**

I am a B.Sc. Agriculture student in Pune. I need the research behind a two-page seminar paper on government subsidies for drip irrigation for small farmers in Maharashtra.

Do not research yet. Reply with a numbered research plan and nothing else: which schemes you intend to examine, central and state; what you will establish about each one (who qualifies, what share of the cost is paid, how a farmer applies); and which sites you expect to use for each step.

Rules the plan must obey: government portals and recognised agricultural universities first; the publication or last-reviewed date noted for every source, with anything older than two years flagged; no coaching notes, no news articles standing in for the scheme itself, no undated PDF whose issuer you cannot name.

I will correct the plan before you start.

My wife and I are both in our late sixties and live in Ludhiana. Four days in Haridwar and Rishikesh, early February. About ₹40,000 for the whole trip, and neither of us can walk far.

**What you must not do:** book, reserve, pay, hold or open a payment page. Not even a free-cancellation hold. You find the options; I decide and I book.

Search the web and bring me three separate tables, with a link in every row:
1. Trains from Ludhiana to Haridwar - departure, arrival, class, approximate fare, and whether it arrives at an hour two tired people can manage.
2. Mid-range hotels within a short walk of Har Ki Pauri - price a night, whether the building has a lift, and the real walking distance to the ghat.
3. Temple and Ganga aarti timings for early February, with the page you read them on and the date that page was last updated.

Then the four days laid out day by day, with a running total against the ₹40,000 and short walking each day.

Write [confirm] against any fare or timing you are not certain of. I would rather check six things myself than discover one invented one at the station.

**First, a check this errand depends on.** Reading your own mailbox is not the same as searching the web - it needs a connection you have switched on and permitted, and what is on offer differs between apps and keeps changing. Open your own settings and look. If there is no such connection, do not abandon the errand: do the gathering yourself and hand over the result, which is the version below.

I run a tiles and sanitaryware shop in Lucknow. Attached is a sheet exported from my own records - customer name, invoice date, amount, and a column marked "payment received: yes / no / not sure".

Working only from the rows marked "no" or "not sure":
1. Build a table - customer, invoice date, amount, days outstanding as of today.
2. Then draft one short payment reminder per customer, in simple English, naming that customer's own invoice date and amount.

**Send nothing. There is no version of this errand in which you press Send.** Show me the table and the drafts here. I will read each one, correct it, and send it myself from my own account.

Where a row says "not sure", write a polite enquiry asking whether payment has already been made, not a reminder. I would rather ask twice than accuse once. And put no UPI id, payment link or bank detail in any draft - I will add those myself if I want them there.