# GPT getting stuck with multi-step instructions

**URL:** <https://community.openai.com/t/gpt-getting-stuck-with-multi-step-instructions/613209>\
**Category:** Prompting\
**Tags:** gpt-4\
**Created:** [February 4, 2024, 2:25am UTC](https://community.openai.com/t/gpt-getting-stuck-with-multi-step-instructions/613209 "2024-02-04T02:25:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![andreasduess](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/openai1/user_avatar/community.openai.com/andreasduess/32/299850_2.png) [@andreasduess](https://community.openai.com/u/andreasduess)\
**Post date:** [February 4, 2024, 2:25am UTC](https://community.openai.com/t/gpt-getting-stuck-with-multi-step-instructions/613209/1 "2024-02-04T02:25:39Z")

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I want to develop a GPT which does the following:

On prompt “Good morning” visit 5 websites in succession, read the first five headlines on each site and bring me back a summary for each site.

GPT assures me that this is within its capabilities, but try as I might, it always gets stuck after the first site has been visited and the content summarized.

I can manually move the process by prompting “next” but have not managed to get the GPT to do this automatically.

Any ideas?

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**Author:** ![sebo001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@sebo001](https://community.openai.com/u/sebo001)\
**Post date:** [February 4, 2024, 2:51am UTC](https://community.openai.com/t/gpt-getting-stuck-with-multi-step-instructions/613209/2 "2024-02-04T02:51:52Z")

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@andreasduess Hi, that’s a straightforward use case. And your objective seems to be achievable by COT prompting, where along with the top-level instructions you show your GPT the sequential steps it needs to take. Not sure if you have already done it, but I tested a use case similar to yours and it worked just fine.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![idonotwritecode](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/openai1/user_avatar/community.openai.com/idonotwritecode/32/544455_2.png) [@idonotwritecode](https://community.openai.com/u/idonotwritecode)\
**Post date:** [February 4, 2024, 3:41am UTC](https://community.openai.com/t/gpt-getting-stuck-with-multi-step-instructions/613209/3 "2024-02-04T03:41:38Z")

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@andreasduess

Do this:

Within your prompt see if you can add the following:

…your initial prompt…  
Follow the below steps:

(You could add something here on how the GOt gets the links)

Step 1: go here and extract title  
Step 2: go here (which is the next link) and extract the title…  
Step x: now combine the data from steps 1 to x-1 and give me a summary  
…

Let us know how it goes or if you have more questions.
