Getting Generic Drafts? Here’s How to Write AI Prompts for Knowledge Base Articles
Learn AI prompt engineering for documentation that actually works! Get copy-paste templates to create better help article drafts faster.
I have a love-hate relationship with my morning coffee.
I love the ritual. The smell of freshly ground beans, the first warm sip…it’s the perfect start to my day. But some mornings? Some mornings, that first sip is just…meh 😒
It’s a bitter reminder that I’m about to face a mountain of work, and my brain hasn’t quite caught up yet. It’s the coffee equivalent of the Sunday Scaries.
For many of us in the technical writing and customer support world, staring at a blank page in our knowledge base editor feels a lot like a mundane . You know you need to create a helpful, clear, and engaging help article, but the words just aren’t flowing.
The cursor blinks. And blinks. And blinks. And you can almost feel the customer waiting for an answer on the other side of the screen. The pressure to build out a world-class, self-service experience is immense.
But what if you could skip that dreaded blank page altogether? What if you had a brilliant assistant who could whip up a solid first draft in seconds, leaving you to do what you do best: refine, perfect, and add that crucial human touch?
That’s the promise of AI in the knowledge base world. And I’m here to tell you it’s not some far-off, futuristic dream. It’s here, it’s happening, and it’s about to become your new best friend. But like any good relationship, you need to learn how to communicate.
In the world of AI, that means mastering the art of the prompt.
What is AI Prompt Engineering?
Think of AI prompt engineering as learning to speak AI's language fluently. Just like you wouldn't ask a colleague to "do the thing" and expect great results, you can't just tell an AI to "write content" and get something amazing.
Prompt engineering is the art and science of giving AI tools the right instructions, context, and examples so they can produce exactly what you need. It's like being a really good project manager—the clearer and more specific your brief, the better the outcome.
"the success of harnessing the full potential of generative AI depends on the user's ability to craft effective prompts".
Here's the thing: AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, or the AI features in your knowledge base software are incredibly powerful, but they're also incredibly literal.
They don't know your brand voice, your audience's pain points, or that when you say "write a help article," you actually mean "write a scannable, empathetic guide that doesn't sound like a robot manual."
For us in the documentation and customer support world, prompt engineering means:
- Teaching AI to write in your brand's voice (friendly? formal? somewhere in between?)
- Getting consistent formatting and structure across all your content
- Ensuring AI understands your audience's technical level and emotional state
- Creating reusable "recipes" that work every single time
The best part? Once you learn these techniques, you're not just getting better AI outputs—you're actually becoming a better communicator overall. The skills that make you great at prompting AI also make you better at briefing designers, explaining requirements to developers, and even writing clearer emails to your team.
We're essentially learning to be translators between human needs and AI capabilities. And trust me, it's way more straightforward than it sounds! ✨
The “Tell Me What to Do” Trap: Why Your AI Prompts Aren’t Working
So, you’ve decided to dip your toes into the AI waters. You’re excited. You’re ready to have your workload magically disappear.
You open up your AI-powered knowledge base (like, ahem, the slick AI suite we have here at HelpDocs 😉) and you type something like this:
“Write a help article about our new ‘Auto-Tagging’ feature.”
You hit enter, and in seconds, a fully formed article appears. The magic! ✨ But then… you actually read it.
It’s… fine. It has a title like "An Article About Auto-Tagging." The paragraphs are grammatically correct. It definitely mentions the feature. But it’s generic. It’s soulless. It has the personality of a beige wall.
This is the “tell me what to do” trap.
You’ve given the AI a task, but you haven’t given it any real direction. It’s the "garbage in, garbage out" principle of computing. The AI isn’t being lazy; it’s just filling in the massive blanks you left with the most probable—and therefore most boring—text.
To get truly great results from your AI, you need to move from being a task-giver to being a conductor. You need to be the maestro of your own AI orchestra, guiding it with well-crafted prompts that give it all the context, detail, and personality it needs to create something genuinely brilliant.
What Makes a Good AI Prompt for Documentation?
Think of your AI as a super-eager-to-please, incredibly knowledgeable, but slightly naive intern. They have access to a vast library of information, but they need you to tell them exactly what to do with it. A vague request gets you a vague result. A detailed, thoughtful request gets you something that can truly shine.
A great prompt isn't just one sentence; it's a recipe. Let's break down the ingredients:
🍅 Ingredient 1: The Persona (Or, Who Are We Playing Today?)
Never let the AI guess who it is. You need to assign it a role. This is the single easiest way to influence the tone, vocabulary, and style of the output.
- Bad: Write about…
- Good: “You are a friendly and knowledgeable technical writer at HelpDocs…”
- Even Better: “You are HelpDocs’ most enthusiastic and patient onboarding specialist, obsessed with making new customers feel welcome and empowered…”
🥗 Ingredient 2: The Audience (Who Is This For, Anyway?)
Just as important as who the AI is, is who the AI is writing for. An article for a developer is going to be wildly different from one for a non-technical small business owner.
- Bad: …explain our new feature.
- Good: “…You’re writing for a non-technical user who is new to our product.”
- Even Better: “…You’re writing for a busy, slightly stressed marketing manager who has never used a knowledge base before and needs to get up and running in under 15 minutes.”
🥑 Ingredient 3: The Goal (What’s the Point?)
Why does this article exist? What should the user know or be able to do after reading it? A clear goal turns a meandering explanation into an actionable guide.
- Bad: …an article about setting up a knowledge base.
- Good: “…The goal of this article is to teach them how to set up their first knowledge base.”
- Even Better: “…The primary goal of this article is to guide the user through the three essential first steps of setting up their knowledge base, so they feel a quick win and are excited to continue exploring the product.”
🍞 Ingredient 4: The Context & Constraints (The Rules of the Game)
This is where you provide the nitty-gritty. It’s your chance to add the guardrails and key information the AI needs to succeed. This includes the tone, formatting, key steps to include, and things to avoid.
- Bad: Write a help article about password resets.
- Good: "Write a help article about password resets. Keep it simple and include screenshots. Make it friendly but professional."
- Even Better: "Write a help article about password resets. The tone should be calm and reassuring since users are likely frustrated. Structure it with: 1) A brief empathetic opening, 2) Step-by-step instructions with button names, 3) What to do if it doesn't work, 4) How to contact support. Include a note about checking spam folders. Avoid technical jargon. Keep steps under 10 words each."
🍽️ Ingredient 5: The Example (The "Show, Don't Tell" Method)
This is a pro-level move called "few-shot prompting." Instead of just telling the AI what you want, you show it. You provide a small example of the style or format you're looking for, which gives the AI a powerful template to emulate.
- Bad: Write in our company style.
- Good: "Write in our company style. We're friendly and conversational."
- Even Better: "Write in our company style. For example: 'We know setting up integrations can feel overwhelming (we've been there!), but we'll walk you through it step by step. By the end of this guide, you'll have your Slack notifications humming along perfectly. ✨ Let's dive in!' Notice how we're encouraging, acknowledge feelings, use contractions, and include emojis."
Don't Repeat Yourself: Teaching Your AI Your Style Guide
Okay, crafting a beautiful, detailed master prompt is powerful. But having to copy and paste that giant block of text every single time you want to write an article? That’s a total drag. This is where the real pros separate themselves—by building a system.
For General Purpose AIs (ChatGPT & Gemini)
Tools like ChatGPT and Gemini are fantastic general-purpose assistants. ChatGPT's "Custom Instructions" and Google's "Gems" for Gemini are great for saving your preferences. But they lack deep integration into your actual content workflow. They don’t know about your other help articles, and they aren't designed specifically for creating a knowledge base.
For HelpDocs AI: Use the Integrated Style Guide
This is where a purpose-built tool really shines. Inside HelpDocs, our AI suite is already deeply integrated with your knowledge base, and our AI Style Guide feature is designed to solve the repetition problem completely.
You configure it once. You go to your settings and tell the AI about your products, your audience, and your specific tone of voice (e.g., "We are cheerful but not silly. We use emojis. We explain complex things simply.").
From that moment on, every single action—whether you're drafting a new article from a keyword, or rewriting a clunky paragraph—is filtered through your unique Style Guide.
It’s not a command you have to remember to use; it's the foundation of your AI's personality. It ensures every piece of content is consistent and on-brand, directly within the tool you’re already using to publish.
Your Prompt Engineering Toolkit: Copy-and-Paste Starters
Theory is great, but let's get practical. Here are some detailed, copy-and-paste prompt templates you can use right now. Just replace the bold italic information and adapt them to your needs.
You are an expert technical writer and customer champion at HelpDocs, a knowledge base software company.
Audience: You are writing for a non-technical new user with a basic understanding of the platform who wants to accomplish a specific task.
Goal: The goal of this article is to create a step-by-step guide that walks the user through the process of downloading an article as a PDF from start to finish. By the end, they should feel confident that they've done it correctly.
Context & Constraints
Tone: The tone should be direct but friendly. Use emojis where appropriate. Include placeholders for screenshot images with descriptions of what it should include.
Structure: Start with a brief, relatable introduction explaining the benefit of doing this task. Then, create a clear, numbered list for the steps. For each step, use a clear action-oriented heading (e.g., "Step 1: Upload Your Logo"). Keep paragraphs short and easy to scan. End with a Best Practices table to give expert advice on how to get the most out of the feature.
Key Information to Include:
- Steps to download PDF (1. Head to article you want to download, 2. ☰ > Export as PDF, 3. Wait for upload).
- Add a note that some articles can't be downloaded if they exceed a certain size
What to Avoid: Don't include anything about customizing the PDF before export.
Example of our style: "With PDF article export you can take your knowledge base offline and take your articles on the go! 🚶 We'll automatically make them readable, print-friendly, and nicely formatted"
Now, write the help article.
You are an expert technical writer and customer champion at HelpDocs, a knowledge base software company.
Audience:
You are writing for a frustrated user who is experiencing a specific problem: unable to log into an additional account. They are likely stressed and need a clear, fast solution.
Goal:
The goal is to help the user quickly diagnose and solve their problem with minimal effort, turning their frustration into relief.
Context & Constraints
Tone: The tone must be extremely empathetic, calm, and reassuring. Start by acknowledging the user's frustration directly and reassuring them.
Structure:
Begin with a short introduction that lists common signs of this problem so the user can confirm they're in the right place. Create a section for each solution with a numbered list of steps to resolve the issue. End with a friendly closing that says what to do if the problem still isn't fixed.
Key Information to Include:
Order the solutions from most common/easiest to least common/hardest. For each list the exact troubleshooting steps, error messages, and what to look for.
Possible solutions from most common to least:
1. Password Consistency (not using the same password as the original account)
2. Password Reset Confusion (You must reset your password through your original HelpDocs account—not the new one you're trying to access)
What to Avoid: Do not make jokes or be overly casual. Avoid blaming the user.
Now, write the troubleshooting guide.
You are an expert technical writer and customer engineer at HelpDocs, a knowledge base software company.
Audience: You are writing for users who need to connect HelpDocs with Plausible Analytics. They may have varying technical skill levels but need to complete this setup successfully.
Goal: The goal is to create a comprehensive setup guide that walks users through the integration process step-by-step, anticipating common issues and providing troubleshooting help.
Context & Constraints
Tone: The tone should be clear and methodical, supportive and detailed. Break down complex processes into manageable steps.
Structure:
- Start with prerequisites and what users need before beginning.
- Include a time estimate and difficulty level.
- Create numbered steps with screenshots for each major action.
- Add "What you should see" confirmations after key steps.
- Include a troubleshooting section for common issues.
- End with testing instructions and next steps.
Key Information to Include:
- Need a Plausible Analytics account
- Need the domain listed in your Plausible account (e.g. support.helpdocs.io)
What to Avoid: Offering advice on the Plausible platform.
Example of our style: "Fancy tracking detailed analytics on your Knowledge Base? With our super easy Plausible integration, it'll take a few seconds."
Now, write the integration guide.
The Future is a Conversation, Not a Command
The way we create and consume information is changing at a dizzying pace. AI is a huge part of that change, and it’s up to us to learn how to work with it, not just delegate to it.
This isn't about replacing human writers; it's about augmenting them. And like Dave Gerhardt says below, delegating the stuff you simply don't like.
By combining detailed, thoughtful prompts with smart, integrated tools, you turn AI from a novelty into a true co-pilot for creating your knowledge base. You get to skip the blank page and focus on what matters most: creating clear, helpful, and genuinely human content for your customers.
So, the next time you’re facing that blinking cursor, don’t despair. Take a sip of your coffee (hopefully, it’s a good one!), and start a real conversation with your AI. You might be surprised at what you can create together.
And who knows? You might even start to love those early mornings ☕️✨