Prompt Chain: From Design Brief to Concept Narrative to Presentation Script in One Claude Conversation

What This Builds

You finish discovery with a brief, and the next two days go on turning it into a concept narrative, a deck outline and something sensible to say out loud on the call. This chain does that in one Claude conversation, with four prompts that each build on the last. Between prompts you stop, check the output against your own notes and fix it before going on.

The chain never supplies what the brief does not contain. Anything missing becomes a question for you or a bracketed placeholder, so you do not end up presenting a product, a size or a number that Claude made up.

Prerequisites

• A Claude account at claude.ai. A free account can run a short chain. Longer conversations and heavier use sit on paid plans such as Pro ($20/month), so check Claude's pricing page for current limits.
• Total ongoing cost: the Claude plan you choose, if any. There is no other subscription in this build.
• A written design brief for one project: needs, how the space is used, style words, budget range and must-keeps
• Your own images and drawings for the project (floor plan options from CAD, photos of physical samples, site photos), so you know what could go on each slide

Before you paste the brief. The brief describes a private home and a family. Open Claude's privacy and data settings and read whether chats are used to train models and how long they are kept, because a free consumer plan may use chats for training unless you turn that off. Then clean the brief. Replace the client's name with a project name such as "the Maple Street project". Remove the street address, the children's names and any mention of an alarm system, safe or valuables. Do not upload photos of the home or the family. For a commercial client, read the NDA first, because its own terms decide what a service provider may see. Leave the budget as a range you wrote yourself or as a placeholder.

The Concept

Think of a relay race. Each runner hands the baton to the next, and nobody runs the whole lap. Your brief goes to Claude as a checker first, then as a writer, then as an outline maker and finally as a scriptwriter. Because it all happens in one conversation, each stage can see the stages before it, so the script uses the same words as the narrative and the narrative uses the same facts as the brief.

The checkpoints are what make it safe. A writer working from a flawed brief writes a polished version of the flaw. Stopping after every prompt lets you catch the flaw while it is one paragraph long, not after it has become a deck.

Build It Step by Step

Part 1: Start the conversation

Open a new Claude conversation, pick a recent model (for example Sonnet 5) and keep this one conversation for this one project. Do not mix two projects in a conversation, since details from one can leak into the other.

Part 2: Prompt 1, check the brief

Paste the cleaned brief into the placeholder and send:

I'm an interior designer. Below is a design brief. Read it as a careful second reader and do not write anything for the client yet.

List:
(a) Conflicts: places where two statements in the brief pull against each other. Quote both statements.
(b) Gaps: things a concept needs that the brief does not say, such as who uses the space and when, what must be kept, the budget range, the timeline, and any needs of the household that affect the design.
(c) Questions: a numbered list of questions I should answer before a concept is written, covering every conflict and gap.

Do not guess any answer. Do not suggest products, brands, dimensions or prices.

BRIEF:
[paste the cleaned brief]

Checkpoint 1. Read the questions and answer each one in writing, using your discovery notes. Check that no question assumes a fact the brief never gave. If Claude found no conflicts in a brief you know is thin, say so and ask it to read again, looking for what a skeptical client would notice. Needs that affect safety or accessibility are questions for you and the architect or engineer of record. Do not ask Claude to decide them. Do not go on until every question has an answer or a deliberate "leave open".

Part 3: Prompt 2, the concept narrative

Paste your answers into the placeholder and send:

Here are my answers to your questions:
[paste your answers]

Using only the brief and my answers, write a concept narrative of [150 to 250] words addressed to the client. Use the client's own words wherever the brief quotes them. Say how the room should feel, how it will be used, and the one or two ideas that organize the design.

Do not name any product, brand, dimension, price or color code. If something is not in the brief or my answers, write a bracketed placeholder such as [material to confirm] and do not fill it in.

Checkpoint 2. Read it aloud as if to the client. Mark every sentence you cannot trace back to the brief or your answers and delete it or turn it into a question. Replace generic phrases ("warm and inviting") with the client's own words if they used any. Edit the narrative yourself or tell Claude what to change, and then confirm the final version in the conversation, because prompts 3 and 4 build on it.

Part 4: Prompt 3, the slide outline

Fill the minutes and send:

Turn the approved narrative into a slide-by-slide outline for a client presentation of about [8] minutes.

For each slide give:
- a title
- two to four bullet points drawn only from the narrative
- the image or drawing I will place on it, written as a placeholder in square brackets that describes my own material, for example [floor plan option A from CAD] or [photo of the physical fabric sample]

Do not describe an image to be generated. Do not add any product, dimension or price. At the end, list any slide where the narrative has too little content to fill it.

Checkpoint 3. Check each image placeholder against what you actually have. If a slide calls for a drawing you have not made, either plan it or remove the slide. If you plan to add AI concept images, tell the client that they are concepts for conversation and not renderings of the real design. Dimensions and colors on slides come from your CAD drawings and physical samples. Claude's outline supplies none of them. Count the slides and check the number suits the minutes you chose.

Part 5: Prompt 4, the spoken script

Fill in the minutes and the number of decisions and send:

Write a spoken script for this outline, timed for [8] minutes. Write it the way I would say it aloud: short sentences, a marker in square brackets where I change slides, and no jargon the client has not used themselves.

Begin with a one-line time plan showing how many minutes each slide gets. End with the decisions I need from the client, as a numbered list of no more than [3], each phrased as a question the client can answer yes or no or by choosing between options I have shown.

Use a placeholder for anything the brief does not provide.

Checkpoint 4. Read the script aloud with a timer. If it runs over, tell Claude "Cut this to [8] minutes by removing the least important sentences on each slide" and time it again. Check the time plan adds up to your minutes. Check every decision is one the client can actually make at this stage, and that each one matches an option you will have on screen. Put the decisions into your client decision tracker, with a Decide By date for each.

Real Example: The Maple Street living room

Setup: One conversation. The cleaned brief says the household is two adults and a dog, the room is used for evening television and for hosting up to 8 guests on weekends, the style words are "calm, warm, not too modern", the client wants a light and open feel and also "a cozy, darker corner", and the client's grandmother's walnut cabinet must stay. It gives no timeline and says nothing about window treatments.

Prompt 1 output: Claude returns two conflicts and three gaps, five questions in all. The conflicts are (1) "light and open" against "a cozy, darker corner" and (2) hosting 8 against the seating the brief says the room has now. The gaps are (3) the date by which the room must be ready, (4) window treatments and (5) whether the dog affects fabric and flooring choices. You answer all five: the dark corner is a reading nook only, extra seating for 8 guests will be loose pieces brought in for gatherings, the room must be ready by [date], windows stay bare for now, and the dog does matter for fabrics.

Prompt 2 output: A narrative of about 180 words that opens with the client's phrase "calm, warm, not too modern", describes a light main room with one darker reading nook, and names the walnut cabinet as the anchor of the room. It uses placeholders such as [fabric to confirm] where the brief is silent and names no product.

Prompt 3 output: Six slides for 8 minutes.

1. The brief in one sentence, with [project name and date]
2. How the room is used, with [site photo of the room with no people in frame]
3. The concept in three phrases, with [mood board from my own sources]
4. Layout options, with [floor plan option A from CAD] and [floor plan option B from CAD]
5. Materials and palette, with [photo of physical samples]
6. Decisions and next steps, with no image Claude's closing list flags slide 5 as thin, because the narrative has no materials yet.

Prompt 4 output: A time plan of 1 minute for slide 1, 1.5 minutes each for slides 2 to 5 (6 minutes), and 1 minute for slide 6. That adds up to 1 + 6 + 1 = 8 minutes. The script ends with three questions: which layout, A or B, does the client prefer, whether the reading nook stays, and whether to proceed to selections.

Time saved: Two days of back-and-forth between brief, narrative and deck compress into one working session of checks and edits. Your own first project will give you a real figure.

What to Do When It Breaks

• Claude quietly fills a gap with an invented detail (silent failure). You will not see an error. The narrative just reads well and contains a made-up product, size or schedule. After prompt 2 and again after prompt 4, send: "List every product, brand, dimension, price and date in your last answer and quote where each one came from in my brief or answers." Delete anything it cannot quote.
• Prompt 1 returns no real questions. The brief may be too thin or too tidy. Ask Claude to list the three decisions a client would most likely change their mind about.
• The narrative sounds generic. Paste back the client's exact words from discovery and ask for a rewrite that uses at least three of them. Check the phrases are actually the client's.
• Later prompts forget earlier answers. Long conversations drift. Paste the approved narrative into a fresh conversation and run prompts 3 and 4 there.
• The script runs long. Read it aloud and time it yourself, and then ask for a cut by minutes.

Variations

• Simpler version: Run only prompts 1 and 2 and write the deck yourself.
• Extended version: Save the four prompts in a Claude Project, as in the Level 3 guide on a Claude Project for your studio voice, so every new job starts from the same chain.
• Handover version: After the project, reuse the narrative as the base for the portfolio write-up, once the client agrees to its use.

What to Do Next

• This week: Run the chain on one live brief and compare its question list to your own gut feel.
• This month: Tune the prompts to your presentation style, for example how many decisions you like to ask for.
• Advanced: Connect the decisions list to your client decision tracker so each one gets a Decide By date.

Advanced guide for interior designers. Interfaces and limits change, so check Claude's current settings and plan details before you rely on them.