I don't know and I can't see.
The rules of the game seem clear to me. I believe you that you found, and perhaps still find, them confusing. But I don't understand why.
From DW p 161:
Dungeon World adventures never presume player actions. A Dungeon World adventure portrays a setting in motion - someplace significant with creatures big and small pursuing their own goals. As the players come into conflict with that setting and its denizens, action is inevitable. You’ll honestly portray the repercussions of that action.
This is how you play to find out what happens. You’re sharing in the fun of finding out how the characters react to and change the world you’re portraying. You’re all participants in a great adventure that’s unfolding. So really, don’t plan too hard. The rules of the game will fight you. It’s fun to see how things unfold, trust us.
So this tells you (as GM) (i) not to plan too hard, and (ii) to portray a world that is in motion, with denizens pursuing their own goals. It doesn't tell you how to to do (ii), but luckily the rulebook doesn't stop at p 161! Twenty-four pages later, on p 185, there is the following:
Fronts are secret tomes of GM knowledge. Each is a collection of linked dangers - threats to the characters specifically and to the people, places, and things the characters care about. It also includes one or more impending dooms, the horrible things that will happen without the characters’ intervention. . . . Fronts are built outside of active play. They’re the solo fun that you get to have between games - rubbing your hands and cackling evilly to yourself as you craft the foes with which to challenge your PCs. You may tweak or adjust your fronts during play (who knows when inspiration will strike?) but the meat of them comes from preparation between sessions.
Fronts are designed to help you organize your thoughts on what opposes the players. They’re here to contain your notes, ideas, and plans for these opposing forces. When you’re in a bind your fronts are where you’re going to turn and say, “Oh, so that’s what I should do.” Consider them an organizational tool, as inspiration for present and future mayhem.
When you’re building fronts, think about all the creepy dungeon denizens, the rampaging hordes and ancient cults that you’d like to see in your game. Think in broad strokes at first and then, as you build dangers into your fronts, you’ll be able to narrow those ideas down. When you write your campaign front, think about session-to-session trends. When you write your adventure fronts, think about what’s important right here and right now. When you’re done writing a few fronts you’ll be equipped with all the tools you’ll need to challenge your players and ready to run Dungeon World.
Page 167, which is in between the two bits of rules text I've posted, has this in the list of GM moves:
Every monster in an adventure has moves associated with it, as do many locations. A monster or location move is just a description of what that location or monster does, maybe “hurl someone away” or “bridge the planes.” If a player move (like hack and slash) says that a monster gets to make an attack, make an aggressive move with that monster.
The overarching dangers of the adventure also have moves associated with them. Use these moves to bring that danger into play . . .
Now I think the text in Apocalypse World is clearer, but the above is hardly confusing. Fronts are prepared by the GM, in secret from the players. They provide and organise the material the GM uses to oppose the players (and their characters).
So the GM's job is to portray a dangerous world, that is in motion and contains denizens pursuing their ends. The GM does this by making moves with monsters, locations and other dangers. And they know what those moves are (or should be) by drawing on the fronts that they have prepared.
This makes no sense to me, to be honest. It seems to have little or no connection to the key rules that I have quoted. And to not really connect to the play of Dungeon World as I understand it, based on what the rulebook says and my own play experience.
The rules don't say
prep lots of things. They say to prepare fronts, which contain threats; and to use those actively in play. This absolutely requires knowing what motivates those threats - knowing what danger they pose, and what nefarious things they hope to achieve.
Whether this involves location is a further matter, which I would expect would vary from threat to threat. Your idea of "the area players are going through" seems to me to belong more to exploratory D&D-esque play than to Dungeon World. Likewise your reference to "possible consequences": that is precisely the making of presumptions about player actions that the rules tell you to avoid.
To go back to the example of unwanted attention, it comes up on on p160 (ie immediately preceding the rules I've already quoted):
Part of following the rules is making moves. Your moves are different than player moves and we’ll describe them in detail in a bit. Your moves are specific things you can do to change the flow of the game.
In all of these things, exploit your prep. At times you’ll know something the players don’t yet know. You can use that knowledge to help you make moves. Maybe the wizard tries to cast a spell and draws unwanted attention. They don’t know that the attention that just fell on them was the ominous gaze of a demon waiting two levels below, but you do.
This is consistent with the other rules. (Which is unsurprising.) The knowledge the GM has, that the players don't, is in their "secret tomes" - that is, the fronts and threats they've prepared. This is what the GM exploits, to make moves. So, suppose that player of the wizard decides that their PC casts a spell:
When you release a spell you’ve prepared, roll+INt. ✴On a 10+, the spell is successfully cast and you do not forget the spell - you may cast it again later. ✴On a 7-9, the spell is cast, but choose one:
• You draw unwelcome attention or put yourself in a spot. The GM will tell you how.
• The spell disturbs the fabric of reality as it is cast - take -1 ongoing to cast a spell until the next time you Prepare Spells.
•After it is cast, the spell is forgotten. You cannot cast the spell again until you prepare spells.
Suppose further that the player's result is a 7, and the players choose the first option. Now the GM has to decide
what sort of unwelcome attention has been drawn by the wizard? How to do that? Well, suppose that the GM has prepared - as a threat - a demon who is waiting two levels below. The GM then decides that
that is the unwelcome attention.
Now, the player of the wizard, or another player, can try and ascertain what the unwelcome attention is. Or they can just take their chances, in which case the GM has been handed a golden opportunity, and is at liberty to make as hard a move as they like when the back-and-forth of play permits it. (Page 166: "A soft move ignored becomes a golden opportunity for a hard move.")
To me, as I've said, this is all clear and consistent.
I don't know what you mean by "more than the absolute bare minimum I need". The rules tell you how much you need - enough fronts, threats and dangers to have useful things to say when the rules require you to say things.
Of course, how you go about RPGing is your prerogative and no one else's. But for what it's worth, I'd suggest that you try playing Dungeon World as it is written and see how it goes. Rather than using it as basically an alternative action resolution framework for an improv-heavy D&D-type game.
The rule are very specific. I've quote them in this post.
So one possibility is that Dungeon World is a great conspiracy to confuse would-be RPGers about the sort of prep it requires.
Another possibility is that, just like Apocalypse World, and as per the rules I've quoted in this post, it sets out exactly and unambiguously how it is to be played and GMed.
