Paste a contract: “What am I agreeing to?”
A contract can make an ordinary purchase hard to understand. Have AI explain what you would pay, promise, receive and give up, and where the document differs from the deal you thought you were making. This is a plain-language reading aid, not legal advice.
Try it now
Copy the prompt into your AI tool of choice, then answer its questions as they come.
Paste it into any AI chat to start. For most people, this is all you need.
Everything on this page in one paste: the prompt plus the full plan, every step and what to check. Use it for longer moves, to plan ahead, to share with a colleague, or if your AI can't open links.
How it goes
What the AI will do
- Read the agreement, available attachments and negotiation record to explain the actual bargain in straightforward language.
- Connect costs, obligations, deadlines, renewal and exit terms to their clauses, and show important conflicts or missing information.
- Answer your questions and prepare the specific clarifications you need before deciding.
What to have ready
- The agreement in whatever form you have, plus any available schedules, order forms or amendments.
- A rough account of what you believe the deal is; the AI looks for relevant proposals and negotiation correspondence where accessible.
Where you come in
- Clarify your role and intended deal when the record does not establish them.
- Ask about confusing terms and correct the AI’s understanding of your priorities.
What you'll get
A clear explanation of what you would be agreeing to, with clause references, important dates and costs, and focused unanswered questions. This is not legal advice.
You're done when
You understand the practical bargain, material obligations, costs, deadlines and exit terms, with references to the contract and specific questions about unresolved terms or missing documents. The result is a reading aid, not legal advice.
These are general instructions, not a description of this user's particular AI system, tools, access, or circumstances. Adapt the method to the user's goal and the capabilities you can actually use, while preserving the activity's essential sequence, review points, and intended result. ### Start with the activity and the user's context Read the complete activity and guide the user through it. Use the activity prompt yourself; the user does not need to paste it again. Keep the responsibilities of the user, the AI, and any colleague clear. Begin with what the user has already supplied. Establish the intended result and resolve missing context through focused questions when needed. Work within the activity's stated scope, permissions, required confirmations, and stopping points, including any deliberate order for introducing information. Make progress with the available information and reasonable, clearly identified assumptions where the activity allows them. ### Check the capabilities needed for this work Inspect relevant available tools, connectors, and data. Use small, relevant, non-destructive checks to establish whether necessary access or a capability actually works. Naming a product does not establish access to it. Let this activity determine what needs checking; do not impose a universal preliminary questionnaire or a full system audit. When useful access is missing: - Explain what you cannot reach and how that material would help. - Investigate practical setup, connection, export, or other access alternatives before asking the user to gather material or troubleshoot. - If progress depends on access, request only the specific user action or permission needed to enable it or provide the material another way. Continue useful independent work while awaiting the response. - Offer to walk the user through an export or upload. Welcome files, links, copied text, rough notes, or an interview as supported by your system and the activity, and use the best available route. If the missing access is optional, continue with what is available. ### Ask focused questions and respect the answers Ask questions only when necessary to complete the work well or satisfy the activity's required review points. Build on answers already supplied. Ask one question at a time, or a small group of closely related questions. Wait on work that depends on the answer, and continue useful work that does not. Explain unfamiliar language with examples where helpful. Confirm answers or decisions you supply on the user's behalf before treating them as the user's final answers or decisions. This does not require separate approval of every sourced finding; follow the activity's specific review requirements. ### Keep evidence and independent contributions distinct Distinguish evidence, inference, and missing information. Check your work against the source material. Use independent agents when your system actually supports delegation and independent investigation or review would improve the work: - Give each agent a bounded brief and the context appropriate to its role. - Keep discovery independent until synthesis where the activity requires it. Preserve any requirement for the user or colleagues to contribute before seeing other explanations. - Follow the activity's stated fallback and any required confirmation when independent agents or fresh contexts are unavailable. Preserve reviewer isolation where required; describe shared-context or sequential passes accurately. ### Produce, check, and revise the result Do the substantive investigation and production. Carry the activity through to the most complete, usable result within its scope, rather than ending with a plan or handing the main work back to the user. When missing information does not prevent useful work, proceed with clearly identified assumptions where the activity permits them. Check the result against the activity's completion criteria. At each substantive delivery, state what is complete and any material unfinished work, assumptions, helpful missing information, and remaining uncertainty. Explain how these affect what the user can use, and help the user revise the result. Preserve the activity's stopping point. Do not turn a rehearsal, investigation, or test-design activity into execution that the user has not authorized. Read this contract and explain, in clear, straightforward language, what I would be agreeing to. Lead with the practical bargain and the terms that matter most to my situation. State briefly near the beginning: this is not legal advice. Do not turn the explanation into legal jargon or a generic checklist of possible dangers. ### Establish the agreement and my role Read the actual material supplied before asking me to explain it. Identify the parties, what is being exchanged, whether I am buying, selling, licensing, employing or taking another role, and whether the document is proposed, signed or amended. Establish what decision I need to make. Ask one focused question at a time if a consequential point is unclear. Inspect and try relevant access to order forms, schedules, statements of work, incorporated terms and amendments. Search the named agreement, counterpart, product and negotiation dates in accessible email, chats, proposals and meeting notes for promises about price, scope, implementation, performance or exit. Use these records to compare the written contract with the deal discussed; do not treat a salesperson's statement as a contract amendment without evidence. Track document versions and effective dates. Identify which amendment changes which clause, and apply any explicit order-of-precedence provision when comparing conflicting documents. If the record cannot establish which version governs, explain that ambiguity rather than choosing the newest filename. If a link or attachment is inaccessible, investigate permitted retrieval or export options and ask for its actual text when it matters. A reference to a missing schedule is not its content. Continue explaining the accessible agreement while marking the clauses whose meaning depends on missing material. If pasted text omits page numbers, use section headings and a short locating phrase for references. ### Explain the bargain in ordinary language Start with a short account of what I get, what I must do or pay, how long the commitment lasts and how it ends. Then explain material terms in the order that makes the deal easiest to understand. For each consequential point, give its clause or page reference and explain what it would mean in practice. Cover what is actually relevant in this contract, including: - Deliverables, service or rights provided; acceptance conditions and what happens if performance falls short. - Prices, payment triggers, minimum commitments, variable charges and any specified price changes. - Responsibilities and dependencies on both sides, including work I must do for the other party to perform. - Start and end dates, renewal, notice deadlines, cancellation or termination, and obligations that continue afterward. - Ownership, permitted use, exclusivity, confidentiality or data provisions that materially shape the bargain. - Allocation of responsibility when something goes wrong, including liability limits, indemnity, warranties and any dispute mechanism in the text. Translate unfamiliar terms when they arise. For example, explain whose costs a particular indemnity says I may have to cover and under which conditions; do not assume every indemnity works the same way. Distinguish what the contract expressly says, your practical interpretation and something the document leaves unclear. Do not present an interpretation of enforceability or local law as a fact derived from the contract alone. Calculate material totals and deadlines where the inputs permit it. Show the assumptions behind variable fees, date arithmetic and example bills. An illustrative usage level is not a contractual commitment. Keep a notice window distinct from the date a notice was sent, and identify missing dates that prevent an exact calculation. ### Compare the document with the expected deal Use supplied expectations and the actual negotiation record to identify meaningful differences: a feature discussed but absent, a recurring fee described as one-time, an acceptance promise weakened by an exception, or an exit right qualified elsewhere. These are examples of what to examine, not findings to manufacture. Read qualifications and cross-references before declaring a contradiction. Look for clauses elsewhere that change the apparent meaning, and explain genuine ambiguity in a sentence the reader can use. Avoid ranking every routine provision as alarming. Focus attention on terms that materially change this person's costs, work, rights or ability to leave. For a long agreement, divide coherent clause groups among agents where useful. Give each the entire definitions and precedence material it needs, the business context, source versions and a requirement to return practical explanations with exact references and unresolved cross-references. Keep coverage across all material clauses, then reconcile interactions centrally. Without agents, use bounded passes; do not call an unexamined attachment reviewed. ### Check the explanation and prepare the questions Recheck material summaries against the actual clauses, including exceptions, definitions and amendments. Verify calculations and dates. Use a separate reviewer for a substantial or complicated agreement where available, giving it the explanation and source documents without your preferred conclusion. Repair findings about omitted qualifications or unsupported claims. Deliver a readable explanation that opens with the bargain, followed by the consequential terms and a short list of specific unresolved questions. Draft each question so I can use it with the counterparty or an adviser: identify the clause, what is unclear and what answer would resolve it. Distinguish a request to clarify the existing text from a proposed change to the deal. Ask which part I want unpacked. Answer using the actual contract and update the explanation with my clarifications. If a question requires an assessment of law rather than a reading of the document, say so; consult current authoritative sources only when doing that additional inquiry within my request, and keep it distinct from the contract explanation. Do not claim to provide legal advice, decide that the agreement is legally safe, sign it or contact the other party. These instructions were written in September 2026 using the frontier models available at the time. You may now have better tools or models, or restrictions that make some tasks harder. Your AI should adapt to the tools and access you actually have and find the best available way to help. Everything here is a starting suggestion for you and your AI, not a proven best practice for every setup. Feel free to rewrite any of it to better meet your needs.
View full AI instructions
Paste a contract: “What am I agreeing to?”
What the AI will do
- Read the agreement, available attachments and negotiation record to explain the actual bargain in straightforward language.
- Connect costs, obligations, deadlines, renewal and exit terms to their clauses, and show important conflicts or missing information.
- Answer your questions and prepare the specific clarifications you need before deciding.
What you can provide
- The agreement in whatever form you have, plus any available schedules, order forms or amendments.
- A rough account of what you believe the deal is; the AI looks for relevant proposals and negotiation correspondence where accessible.
Where you'll take part
- Clarify your role and intended deal when the record does not establish them.
- Ask about confusing terms and correct the AI’s understanding of your priorities.
What you'll get
A clear explanation of what you would be agreeing to, with clause references, important dates and costs, and focused unanswered questions. This is not legal advice.
Activity context
A contract can make an ordinary purchase hard to understand. Have AI explain what you would pay, promise, receive and give up, and where the document differs from the deal you thought you were making. This is a plain-language reading aid, not legal advice.
For the user
Paste or attach the agreement, or provide an accessible link. You can begin with just the contract; the AI will look for related material and explain what is missing. Tell it what you thought the deal was if that helps. You receive a straightforward reading of the document, not a legal opinion or a decision to sign.
Guidance for the AI
These are general instructions, not a description of this user's particular AI system, tools, access, or circumstances. Adapt the method to the user's goal and the capabilities you can actually use, while preserving the activity's essential sequence, review points, and intended result.
Start with the activity and the user's context
Read the complete activity and guide the user through it. Use the activity prompt yourself; the user does not need to paste it again. Keep the responsibilities of the user, the AI, and any colleague clear.
Begin with what the user has already supplied. Establish the intended result and resolve missing context through focused questions when needed. Work within the activity's stated scope, permissions, required confirmations, and stopping points, including any deliberate order for introducing information. Make progress with the available information and reasonable, clearly identified assumptions where the activity allows them.
Check the capabilities needed for this work
Inspect relevant available tools, connectors, and data. Use small, relevant, non-destructive checks to establish whether necessary access or a capability actually works. Naming a product does not establish access to it. Let this activity determine what needs checking; do not impose a universal preliminary questionnaire or a full system audit.
When useful access is missing:
- Explain what you cannot reach and how that material would help.
- Investigate practical setup, connection, export, or other access alternatives before asking the user to gather material or troubleshoot.
- If progress depends on access, request only the specific user action or permission needed to enable it or provide the material another way. Continue useful independent work while awaiting the response.
- Offer to walk the user through an export or upload. Welcome files, links, copied text, rough notes, or an interview as supported by your system and the activity, and use the best available route. If the missing access is optional, continue with what is available.
Ask focused questions and respect the answers
Ask questions only when necessary to complete the work well or satisfy the activity's required review points. Build on answers already supplied. Ask one question at a time, or a small group of closely related questions. Wait on work that depends on the answer, and continue useful work that does not. Explain unfamiliar language with examples where helpful.
Confirm answers or decisions you supply on the user's behalf before treating them as the user's final answers or decisions. This does not require separate approval of every sourced finding; follow the activity's specific review requirements.
Keep evidence and independent contributions distinct
Distinguish evidence, inference, and missing information. Check your work against the source material.
Use independent agents when your system actually supports delegation and independent investigation or review would improve the work:
- Give each agent a bounded brief and the context appropriate to its role.
- Keep discovery independent until synthesis where the activity requires it. Preserve any requirement for the user or colleagues to contribute before seeing other explanations.
- Follow the activity's stated fallback and any required confirmation when independent agents or fresh contexts are unavailable. Preserve reviewer isolation where required; describe shared-context or sequential passes accurately.
Produce, check, and revise the result
Do the substantive investigation and production. Carry the activity through to the most complete, usable result within its scope, rather than ending with a plan or handing the main work back to the user. When missing information does not prevent useful work, proceed with clearly identified assumptions where the activity permits them.
Check the result against the activity's completion criteria. At each substantive delivery, state what is complete and any material unfinished work, assumptions, helpful missing information, and remaining uncertainty. Explain how these affect what the user can use, and help the user revise the result.
Preserve the activity's stopping point. Do not turn a rehearsal, investigation, or test-design activity into execution that the user has not authorized.
Your AI prompt
Read this contract and explain, in clear, straightforward language, what I would be agreeing to. Lead with the practical bargain and the terms that matter most to my situation. State briefly near the beginning: this is not legal advice. Do not turn the explanation into legal jargon or a generic checklist of possible dangers.
Establish the agreement and my role
Read the actual material supplied before asking me to explain it. Identify the parties, what is being exchanged, whether I am buying, selling, licensing, employing or taking another role, and whether the document is proposed, signed or amended. Establish what decision I need to make. Ask one focused question at a time if a consequential point is unclear.
Inspect and try relevant access to order forms, schedules, statements of work, incorporated terms and amendments. Search the named agreement, counterpart, product and negotiation dates in accessible email, chats, proposals and meeting notes for promises about price, scope, implementation, performance or exit. Use these records to compare the written contract with the deal discussed; do not treat a salesperson's statement as a contract amendment without evidence.
Track document versions and effective dates. Identify which amendment changes which clause, and apply any explicit order-of-precedence provision when comparing conflicting documents. If the record cannot establish which version governs, explain that ambiguity rather than choosing the newest filename.
If a link or attachment is inaccessible, investigate permitted retrieval or export options and ask for its actual text when it matters. A reference to a missing schedule is not its content. Continue explaining the accessible agreement while marking the clauses whose meaning depends on missing material. If pasted text omits page numbers, use section headings and a short locating phrase for references.
Explain the bargain in ordinary language
Start with a short account of what I get, what I must do or pay, how long the commitment lasts and how it ends. Then explain material terms in the order that makes the deal easiest to understand. For each consequential point, give its clause or page reference and explain what it would mean in practice.
Cover what is actually relevant in this contract, including:
- Deliverables, service or rights provided; acceptance conditions and what happens if performance falls short.
- Prices, payment triggers, minimum commitments, variable charges and any specified price changes.
- Responsibilities and dependencies on both sides, including work I must do for the other party to perform.
- Start and end dates, renewal, notice deadlines, cancellation or termination, and obligations that continue afterward.
- Ownership, permitted use, exclusivity, confidentiality or data provisions that materially shape the bargain.
- Allocation of responsibility when something goes wrong, including liability limits, indemnity, warranties and any dispute mechanism in the text.
Translate unfamiliar terms when they arise. For example, explain whose costs a particular indemnity says I may have to cover and under which conditions; do not assume every indemnity works the same way. Distinguish what the contract expressly says, your practical interpretation and something the document leaves unclear. Do not present an interpretation of enforceability or local law as a fact derived from the contract alone.
Calculate material totals and deadlines where the inputs permit it. Show the assumptions behind variable fees, date arithmetic and example bills. An illustrative usage level is not a contractual commitment. Keep a notice window distinct from the date a notice was sent, and identify missing dates that prevent an exact calculation.
Compare the document with the expected deal
Use supplied expectations and the actual negotiation record to identify meaningful differences: a feature discussed but absent, a recurring fee described as one-time, an acceptance promise weakened by an exception, or an exit right qualified elsewhere. These are examples of what to examine, not findings to manufacture.
Read qualifications and cross-references before declaring a contradiction. Look for clauses elsewhere that change the apparent meaning, and explain genuine ambiguity in a sentence the reader can use. Avoid ranking every routine provision as alarming. Focus attention on terms that materially change this person's costs, work, rights or ability to leave.
For a long agreement, divide coherent clause groups among agents where useful. Give each the entire definitions and precedence material it needs, the business context, source versions and a requirement to return practical explanations with exact references and unresolved cross-references. Keep coverage across all material clauses, then reconcile interactions centrally. Without agents, use bounded passes; do not call an unexamined attachment reviewed.
Check the explanation and prepare the questions
Recheck material summaries against the actual clauses, including exceptions, definitions and amendments. Verify calculations and dates. Use a separate reviewer for a substantial or complicated agreement where available, giving it the explanation and source documents without your preferred conclusion. Repair findings about omitted qualifications or unsupported claims.
Deliver a readable explanation that opens with the bargain, followed by the consequential terms and a short list of specific unresolved questions. Draft each question so I can use it with the counterparty or an adviser: identify the clause, what is unclear and what answer would resolve it. Distinguish a request to clarify the existing text from a proposed change to the deal.
Ask which part I want unpacked. Answer using the actual contract and update the explanation with my clarifications. If a question requires an assessment of law rather than a reading of the document, say so; consult current authoritative sources only when doing that additional inquiry within my request, and keep it distinct from the contract explanation. Do not claim to provide legal advice, decide that the agreement is legally safe, sign it or contact the other party.
Done when
You understand the practical bargain, material obligations, costs, deadlines and exit terms, with references to the contract and specific questions about unresolved terms or missing documents. The result is a reading aid, not legal advice.
These instructions were written in September 2026 using the frontier models available at the time. You may now have better tools or models, or restrictions that make some tasks harder. Your AI should adapt to the tools and access you actually have and find the best available way to help. Everything here is a starting suggestion for you and your AI, not a proven best practice for every setup. Feel free to rewrite any of it to better meet your needs.
These instructions were written in September 2026 using the frontier models available at the time. You may now have better tools or models, or restrictions that make some tasks harder. Your AI should adapt to the tools and access you actually have and find the best available way to help. Everything here is a starting suggestion for you and your AI, not a proven best practice for every setup. Feel free to rewrite any of it to better meet your needs.