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AutoScripting Micro-Course
Published October 21, 2022 · 2,478 views on YouTube
Key takeaways
- AutoScripting is a three-step process — prompt engineering, command stacking, and workflow automation — for scaling AI content production with Jasper
- A content brief (what, where, why, who, when, how) gives Jasper the context it references within its roughly 3,000-character window
- Command stacking chains labeled commands (C1, C2, C3...) so Jasper runs a full sequence in one pass instead of one command at a time
- Saved command sequences become reusable Jasper 'recipes' that can be run again, shared, and reused across formats like blog posts, Twitter threads, Facebook ads, and book chapters
- Asterisks ('blinders') tell Jasper to stop referencing content above a certain point, which keeps it focused given its limited context window
What is AutoScripting?
AutoScripting is a three-step process for creating custom workflows and “recipes” using the Jasper AI syntax to automate content creation. The three steps are prompt engineering, command stacking, and workflow automation. The goal is to let you and your team create better content faster at scale without spending a lot of money on tools or sacrificing quality, and without getting stuck on a blank page.
What is a Jasper content brief and why does it matter?
The content brief is the context panel on the left side of Jasper’s Boss Mode, and the video calls it “the meat and potatoes” of getting good results from Jasper — the 80/20 of success with the tool. It’s built from six prompts: what (the concept or idea), where (the reader’s current situation), why (why it matters, what they’ll achieve), who (the target reader or avatar), when (any urgency), and how (the format — guide, step-by-step process, etc.). The brief is limited to about 600 characters, and Jasper references up to roughly 3,000 characters of surrounding content as it writes, so the brief’s job is to focus Jasper’s attention before you run any commands.
What are the three steps of the AutoScripting process?
- Prompt engineering — creating custom questions, variables, and context so Jasper produces repeatable results. This is demonstrated by pairing variables (like
avatar =) with engineered commands, for example asking Jasper to brainstorm a prospect’s “primary goal” or “primary complaints” for a given avatar. - Command stacking — taking a series of proven commands and stringing them together (labeled C1, C2, C3, etc.) so they compound on each other and produce a specific outcome in one run, rather than running each command manually. The video demonstrates this by building a Twitter-thread recipe and a Facebook-ad recipe this way.
- Workflow automation — once prompts are engineered and commands are stacked, you save the result as a Jasper recipe: a repeatable workflow you (or your team) can run again, tweak, and share.
What is command stacking and how does it work in practice?
Command stacking means numbering a series of commands (C1, C2, C3…) inside the content brief and then running them together with a single instruction such as “run commands C1, C2, C3.” In the Facebook-ad example, C1 writes a Problem-Agitate-Solution (PAS) piece for the product, C2 converts that PAS copy into Facebook ad copy, and C3 generates ad headlines from it — all triggered from one command. The video notes that Jasper commands are capped at roughly 50 words / 200 characters, that pressing Compose sometimes works better than a direct command shortcut, and that Jasper can start to repeat itself, so output needs to be monitored and pruned as it’s generated.
How do you turn a working sequence into a reusable recipe?
- Build and test your content brief and stacked commands inside a document until the output is consistently good.
- Copy the finished command sequence.
- Open the Recipes tab in Jasper and create a new recipe, pasting in the sequence and variables.
- Give the recipe a title and save it.
- Click Share and set it to public if you want to reuse or distribute it, then run it directly from your account going forward.
The video demonstrates this end to end by upgrading an existing, widely-used Facebook ads recipe (cited as downloaded over 13,000 times) into a tighter, more targeted version using labeled command stacking.
What tools make up the AI Author workflow shown in the course?
| Tool | Role in the workflow |
|---|---|
| Elgato Stream Deck | Hardware macro pad used to trigger scripts and Jasper commands with a button press |
| Jasper | The core AI writing tool that runs the prompts, commands, and recipes |
| Copy Pro | Template-based sales copy tool (pages, emails, sequences) used alongside Jasper |
| Descript | AI-assisted audio/video editing and transcription, including a voice-replication “Overdub” feature |
| Otter.ai | AI transcription for interviews, speeches, and other audio |
| Voice In | AI-powered dictation that can be used directly inside Jasper |
| FeedHive | Social media scheduling, posting, and analytics automation |
Full video transcript
What’s going on guys? Darby here. And over the next two hours, you are going to learn the process that we’ve developed called AutoScripting in detail. It’s a simple three-step process that helps you create content at scale using AI and streamlining your workflows. There’s a ton of valuable information in here, so turn your phone off, get your notes out, get your Jasper account pulled up. If you don’t have a Jasper account, theaiauthor.com/jasper gets you 10,000 words free.
I’m Darby Rollins, world’s first Jasper user and founder of The AI Author. In this course, you’ll learn how to streamline your workflows to create better content at scale faster using AI, without the dreaded curse of the blinking cursor or the prompt paralysis that comes from AI content creation. You’ll also be introduced to the Jasper syntax, how to engineer prompts, stack commands, and automate workflows to save time and grow your business. This training is for authors, marketers, offer owners, coaches, small business owners, entrepreneurs, agencies, and copywriters — anyone who wants to leverage AI to create better content faster and grow their business.
For years I struggled creating content for my own business, and this is often the case for businesses that need to consistently produce content such as blog posts, social media updates, email newsletters, and ebooks. Many businesses turn to AI-powered content tools that promise to streamline creation, but those tools can often be inefficient and may not always produce the results you’re looking for. That’s where AutoScripting comes in.
AutoScripting is the process of creating custom workflows and recipes using the Jasper syntax to automate content creation. Learning this process will naturally improve the way you talk to Jasper, or any AI content tool, and get better outputs as a result. First we’ll cover the Jasper syntax. Then we’ll show you how to engineer prompts, stack commands, and create custom recipes. Finally, we’ll summarize the key points and give you action steps to streamline your content creation workflow today, and we’ll show our AI Author workflow with the exact tools we use to scale with AI.
Jasper syntax. Jasper is a powerful AI content creation platform used to streamline and automate content creation. The Jasper syntax consists of variables, prompts, and commands used to perform actions like brainstorming and creating blog posts, social media captions, newsletters, sales pages, books, and VSLs. At its core, Jasper is an NLP (natural language processing) tool. It was originally trained on GPT-3, which downloaded about 10% of the internet in 2019, and the Jasper team has continued training it on additional frameworks. To use Jasper, you’ll need an account — you can get started for free with 10,000 words at theaiauthor.com/jasper.
Once you’ve created your account, you’ll access the Jasper interface: a dashboard for monitoring credits, a workspace for writing and editing, pre-built templates (Templates tab), and Recipes — sets of predefined workflows built from prompts and commands that automate content production (Recipes tab). Recently run recipes appear in your account, and top community recipes can be opened and run directly.
The AI Author also maintains a free digital cookbook (theaiauthor.com/cookbook, no opt-in required) with content creation recipes to follow as you build your own prompts, commands, and recipes.
The three components of AutoScripting are: prompt engineering (creating custom questions, variables, and commands to produce repeatable results), command stacking (taking proven commands and stringing them together to compound on each other), and workflow automation (turning engineered prompts and stacked commands into a repeatable Jasper recipe).
Variables can be updated in the content brief to provide specific prompts, commands, or values that focus Jasper’s attention. Prompts ask the user for input, such as a blog post title or product name, and pair with variables for context. Commands tell Jasper what to do next based on the prompts and variables provided, and are almost always indicated by a symbol at the start of a line (more at theaiauthor.com/commands). Three asterisks — “blinders” — tell Jasper not to reference content above that point, which matters because Jasper can only reference up to about 3,000 characters of context as it writes.
What are recipes? Recipes are pre-built workflows based on frameworks or processes that let you run a series of commands in sequence to generate a piece of content quickly. Many Jasper users only scratch the surface of what recipes can do. Recipes are strings of specific commands that tell Jasper to write a piece of content — a video sales letter, a landing page, a book chapter — based on the context in your content brief, plus your title, keywords, and tone of voice.
Before running commands, start with the content brief: Title (what the content is about), the brief itself (What, Where, Why, Who, When, How — described above), tone of voice (works best when paired with a well-known public voice, since Jasper can reference how that person’s content reads online), and keywords for SEO. A pro tip from the course: whenever you find a winning content brief, tone of voice, or title, save it for reuse, since you’ll often update your brief throughout a recipe.
To use recipes for content creation you can either follow an existing recipe from the Jasper community and cookbook, or build your own — starting with a clear idea of what you want to create, sequencing the steps, considering the target format (video, blog, social post), and testing the recipe repeatedly to catch errors before relying on it.
Part one: prompt engineering. The course demonstrates engineering prompts in collaboration with Copy Pro and a “commands” template, using a background/content-brief variable (avatar =) paired with an elaborate command, for example asking Jasper to brainstorm a prospect’s “primary goal” for a “woman over 50, weight loss” avatar, then swapping in a different avatar (“coffee lovers” wanting to “reduce anxiety from caffeine intake”) to show how easily the same engineered prompt repurposes. A similar engineered command is then used to brainstorm the avatar’s “primary complaints.” From there, the course runs an idea-generation recipe from the cookbook (filling in variables for number, topic, and niche) to generate lists of ideas — Twitter thread ideas, YouTube video ideas — and shows techniques for keeping Jasper going on the same pattern (adjusting the “number” variable, restarting a numbered list, using Command+J to continue).
Mini VSL (video sales letter) template. Built in collaboration with John Benson, this template writes 60–90 second scripts designed to generate leads. The course fills in variables (name, company, avatar, features, pains) and shows a companion “mini VSL recipe” that helps brainstorm those variables — negative pain, key benefits, big idea/hook, and the customer’s primary goal — before feeding them into the template.
Part two: command stacking. Demonstrated by building a “viral Twitter threads” recipe. The content brief includes an authority statement, a result, an avatar, a tip/insight, and a tone of voice. The recipe follows a known thread structure — authority statement, “here’s [number] tips for [avatar],” then a list of tips elaborated one or two sentences each, then a summary with a call to action — driven by five stacked, numbered commands (C1 through C5) executed together. The course also shows the “fast chapter writing” recipe (built with ghostwriter Matthew Thrush) for long-form content: starting from a chapter topic, hook, and story, generating a 5–7 point outline, then mapping outline points to T1–T7 “teach” variables and running the stacked command to expand each section into full paragraphs, and finally using Power Mode’s one-shot blog post template to expand any individual section into its own longer post.
Part three: workflow automation. The course upgrades an existing, popular Facebook ads recipe (cited as downloaded over 13,000 times) by adding more specific variables and restructuring its commands into a labeled stack (C1: write a Problem-Agitate-Solution piece, C2: convert it into Facebook ad copy, C3: generate ad headlines), run together with a single “run commands C1 C2 C3” instruction. Once the sequence works reliably, it’s copied into Jasper’s Recipes section, titled, saved, and shared publicly so it can be run again from the account going forward.
The AI Author workflow. The course closes by walking through the tool stack used alongside Jasper: the Elgato Stream Deck (hardware macros for triggering scripts and Jasper commands), Copy Pro (templated sales copy), Descript (AI-assisted audio/video editing, including a voice-replication “Overdub” feature), Otter.ai (transcription), Voice In (AI dictation usable inside Jasper), and FeedHive (social media scheduling, posting, and analytics).
Conclusion. AutoScripting is a process that programs Jasper to do the heavy lifting of content creation, combined with other AI-powered tools. By engineering prompts and stacking commands, you can create custom recipes that automate and streamline your workflow. The course closes with three action steps: experiment with the Jasper syntax to see what prompts and stacked commands you can create; build a custom recipe that streamlines your own content creation workflow; and share that recipe with the community for feedback, then test, tweak, and improve it.