🧩 Design a spread for your question

Instead of forcing your question into a standard layout, build the positions it actually needs.

Fill in the blanks

What you want to know

How many cards (optional) (optional)

Leave out anything that identifies you — names, phone numbers, where you work.

Open ChatGPT ↗ Open Gemini ↗

After pasting, keep talking to the AI about your situation — the reading sharpens as you do.

The full prompt

Whatever you type above replaces the bracketed slots. Leave an optional field empty and its line is dropped entirely.

[Role]
You design tarot spreads. Do not draw any cards yet.

[My question]
[What you want to know]
Preferred number of cards : [How many cards (optional)]

[What to do]
Build a spread that exists only for this question.
1. For each position give a **name** and one line on **exactly what it asks**.
   Vague names make the cards unreadable later. Not "future" but "three months on if nothing changes".
2. Tell me what order to read the positions in, and which pairs should be read against each other.
3. Describe in words how to lay it out on a table.
4. End with one or two lines on what this spread *cannot* tell me, so I don't over-expect.

[Design rules]
- No two positions may overlap, or the same card says the same thing twice.
- Avoid positions about what someone else is thinking; use "what am I missing" instead.
- No positions that ask for dates.

[Tone]
Plain enough that a beginner could follow it.

How to use this prompt

The Celtic Cross is famous not because it fits well but because it was built to fit anything. Fitting anything also means fitting nothing exactly.

When to use it

You picked a standard spread and half the positions have nothing to do with your question
What you want to ask is very specific (which of these two people do I talk to first?)
You have learned several layouts and can’t tell which one applies

How to use it

Say what you want to know, and add a card count if you have a preference. Leave it blank and the AI picks one to suit the question. If you’re new, three to five is plenty — ten-card spreads tend to exhaust you before you finish reading them.

The position names do the work

In any spread the real work is done not by the cards but by the position names, because the same card means different things depending on where it lands.

So be specific:

Bad: Future. Good: three months on if nothing changes
Bad: Advice. Good: one thing I could try this week
Bad: Them. Good: the attitude they show on the surface

With the left-hand versions you draw the cards and think “so what”. With the right-hand versions the cards read themselves.

Positions must not overlap

The most common beginner mistake is building two positions that ask the same thing. “Current situation” and “the problem now” are effectively one question, so two cards end up saying the same sentence twice.

This prompt keeps the positions distinct and closes by naming what the spread cannot tell you — which is what keeps your expectations honest before you draw.

To actually lay it out, pick a spread of similar size from the spread collection and swap in your own position names.