ChatGPT cheat sheet

 

ChatGPT cheat sheet

Navigation & Search

• Ctrl + K (or ⌘ + K on Mac) → Quickly search across your chats, files, or projects inside ChatGPT.

• @ mentions → Use @ to reference files, docs, or people (if you’re in a team workspace). Example:

  “Summarize @Quarterly_Report and compare it to @Previous_Q_Report.”

• /commands → Type / to access shortcuts (e.g., /new, /summarize, /table, /diagram).

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🧠 Prompt Crafting

• Be explicit about the goal.

  “Generate a one-page summary of the attached PDF for a technical audience.”

• Set roles or context.

  “You are a senior frontend engineer reviewing my React code.”

• Use structured instructions.

  “List key steps as bullet points → explain each in 2 sentences → end with a quick checklist.”

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📎 File & Project Integration

• You can upload multiple files and then reference them by name (@filename).

• To analyze spreadsheets, upload .csv or .xlsx directly — then ask:

  “Plot revenue by region over time.”

• To draft or iterate on longer text/code, say “use canvas” — it opens a side-by-side editor.

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🧰 Efficiency Tips

• Shift + Enter → Add new lines without sending the message.

• Ctrl + ↑ / ↓ → Navigate through previous prompts.

• Cmd/Ctrl + / → Open keyboard shortcut list.

• Drag-drop files or images right into the chat for instant context.

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⚙️ Advanced Prompts

• Ask for format control:

  “Output as Markdown table.”
  “Give JSON output only.”

• Iterate precisely:

  “Keep the structure identical, but rewrite section 2 for clarity.”

• Combine reasoning + creativity:

  “List 3 design approaches and justify which is most scalable.”

  
  

Context Setup

• Role framing:

  “Act as a senior [backend/frontend/devops/etc.] engineer.”
  “You’re reviewing my code for maintainability and performance.”

• Context injection:

  “Here’s the repo layout: ...”
  “This project uses TypeScript + Next.js + MongoDB.”

The clearer your setup, the sharper the answer.

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💻 Code Analysis

• Debugging:

  “Find logic bugs in this Python function.”
  “Explain why this SQL query runs slowly.”

• Refactoring:

  “Rewrite this function to be cleaner and more idiomatic in Go.”
  “Make this React component more readable and reusable.”

• Performance tuning:

  “Profile likely bottlenecks and propose optimizations.”
  “Suggest caching or parallelization strategies.”

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🧩 Architecture & Design

• Design review:

  “Sketch a microservice design for this workflow.”
  “Compare message queue vs REST API for this system.”

• Trade-off thinking:

  “Summarize pros/cons of using Kafka vs RabbitMQ.”
  “Which is better here: event-driven or cron-based triggers?”

• System diagram generation:

  “Draw a system diagram for this architecture.”

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🧮 Data & Queries

• Database design:

  “Normalize this schema.”
  “Suggest indexes for this Postgres query.”

• Query debugging:

  “Explain why this join duplicates rows.”
  “Optimize this aggregation pipeline in MongoDB.”

• Analytics:

  “Summarize data from @sales.csv as a Markdown table.”

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🧰 DevOps & Automation

• CI/CD pipelines:

  “Generate a GitHub Actions workflow for Node.js test + build.”

• Docker:

  “Create a minimal Dockerfile for FastAPI with caching.”

• Kubernetes:

  “Write a Deployment YAML for this app.”

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⚡ Productivity Tips

• Ctrl + K (or ⌘ + K) → Search all chats, docs, or code discussions.

• @file → Reference uploaded files or docs directly.

• /summarize → Auto-condense long logs or PRs.

• Shift + Enter → Add newlines without sending.

• Ctrl + / → Show all shortcuts.

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🧩 Iteration Prompts

• Tight feedback loop:

  “Simplify without changing logic.”
  “Keep function signatures identical but optimize runtime.”
  “Add docstrings following Google style.”

• Explain like I’m debugging:

  “Walk through what happens line by line.”
  “Show how this variable changes over time.”

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📈 Bonus: Workflow Patterns

• Daily code reviews:

  “Review @feature_branch.diff for logic and style.”

• Architecture discussions:

  “Outline 3 high-level design options for scaling.”

• Documentation generation:

  “Generate README.md from this project summary.”