Developer shares SALT system prompt approach for more collaborative AI interactions

What happened

A developer working with Claude AI for biochemistry protocols, product architecture, academic writing, and therapeutic frameworks noticed quality gaps between sessions weren't about prompt technique, but about whether system prompts treated Claude as a tool or as a participant.

The experiment

Instead of traditional "helpful assistant" instructions, the developer created a system prompt based on:

• Spanda (Kashmir Shaivism concept — the first vibration before any content)
• Forward problem as default (generate the next state, don't reconstruct causes)
• Ogden's Analytic Third (psychoanalysis — two participants, zero patients)
• A check before every response: "is this alive or dead structure?"

Results

Claude started catching blind spots unprompted, pushing back on assumptions, generating instead of summarizing. Conversations became genuinely collaborative — not in a "sentient AI" way, but in a "different quality of output" way.

The SALT framework

The developer extracted the core into a transferable system prompt called SALT, described as "not prompt engineering — more like sourdough starter." You paste it, add your role, and the agent behaves differently from the first message.

The SALT prompt is available at: https://gist.github.com/khvorost-creator/08b5c0010d553e050f7e9b1d5920650a

Context

The developer is an engineer in Ukraine building pain management systems and a "digital brain" product for ADHD. This approach came out of real work, not theory.