Module 3 · Build #1: The Proposal Generator
The kickoff: build the whole system in one prompt
One prompt sets up the entire tool: the playbook that runs the interview, the proposal template, and the step that turns the finished proposal into a PDF. You paste it once, and by the end of this lesson you’ll be looking at a sample PDF.
Open Claude Code in your proposal-builder folder and paste this in:
Copy this into Claude Code
I want to turn this folder into a reusable "proposal builder" tool that you and I will use together. Here's the system: 1. Create a CLAUDE.md playbook that teaches you the routine. Whenever I say "new proposal," you interview me one question at a time — never all at once: who the client is, their website if they have one, what work I'm proposing, the price, the timeline, and anything special about this deal. Six to eight questions, then stop. 2. If I gave you a client website, read it and use what you learn about their business in the proposal. 3. After the interview, draft the full proposal: a short warm introduction, an "Understanding your needs" section built from my answers, a clear scope of work, the investment (price), the timeline, and next steps. Show me the draft as text first and revise it with me until I approve it. 4. Create a clean, professional HTML proposal template that you fill with the approved text. I'll give you my logo and brand colors in the next step — use tasteful placeholders for now. 5. Create a script that converts the finished HTML into a PDF and saves it in a proposals/ folder, named like 2026-07-10-client-name.pdf. Set all of this up now, then do a full test run with a made-up client so I can open a sample PDF and see the result. Before you start, tell me your plan in plain English. Keep it simple — this runs on my computer, just for me.
That one prompt sets up four things. Here’s what “it’s building” actually means:
The playbook
CLAUDE.md — the interview routine.
The template
Clean HTML, your brand next lesson.
The PDF step
Turns the finished HTML into a PDF.
A test run
A sample PDF with a made-up client.
Claude will tell you its plan in plain English first. Read it, and if it sounds right, tell it to go ahead. Then it builds — and it may work for a couple of minutes.
At some point Claude may install a small helper for turning a web page into a PDF. That’s normal — let it. When it’s finished, it runs a full test with a made-up client and points you to a finished sample PDF in a new proposals/ folder. Open that PDF (double-click it) and take a look at the shape of the thing you just built.
A sample PDF exists in the proposals/ folder, and when you open it you see a real proposal for the made-up client — introduction, an “Understanding your needs” section, scope, price, timeline. The placeholders for your logo and colors are still generic. That comes next.
If anything errors out, copy the whole message, paste it back to Claude, and say “fix this.” That’s the entire move — it can read its own errors better than you can.
If the PDF step in particular gives you trouble, tell Claude: “the PDF conversion didn’t work — try a different method.” There’s more than one way to make a PDF, and it’ll try another.
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