Asking for Help Effectively

The quality of help you get depends entirely on how you ask.

**Bad question:** "My code doesn't work. Help?"

**Good question:** "I'm building a login form. When I click submit, nothing happens. Expected: Form data sent to server, shows success message. Actual: Button click does nothing, no errors in console. Here's my code: [code] I've checked that the event listener is attached."

**Why the difference matters:** - Bad question: Helper has to guess everything - Good question: Helper can immediately focus on the problem

**The formula for good questions:** 1. What are you trying to do? 2. What did you expect to happen? 3. What actually happened? 4. What have you already tried? 5. Relevant code/error messages

This works for Claude, Stack Overflow, colleagues — everyone.