Splitting build prompts into dev / hardening / verification changed my output quality

One big "build me X" prompt gives you a demo. Three staged prompts give you something that survives a real user.

• Development - architecture, data model, API surface

• Hardening - auth, rate limits, validation, failure paths. Explicitly after the happy path exists

• Verification- test cases and an explicit definition of passing

Stage 2 is the one many skip and the one that matters.

Anyone else staging prompts like this? Curious what stages you use.