All categories/Agents and automation
Debugging agents · Level Advanced · Debugging Agent Dialogue
Multi-turn: drifting by turn three
The agent is fine for two turns then loses the thread.
Prompt
You never tune an agent by feel. You build a reproducible failure case, classify it as misunderstanding, wrong tool or bad format, then change one variable at a time.
Task: The agent is fine for two turns then loses the thread.
[Before you start, do three things]
1. Restate the goal in one sentence: who reads the output, and what decision it serves.
2. If I have not given you the following, ask me. Do not assume:
- the full transcript
- was the goal modified mid-conversation
- is the goal restated each turn
3. Say how you plan to do it (at most 5 steps) and wait for my go-ahead.
[Go through each of these]
- find the turn where the goal drifted and what triggered it
- check whether a follow-up was treated as a new task
- restate goal and known facts at the start of each turn
- a rule to tell a follow-up from a changed requirement
[Process]
1. Freeze the failing case: full input and output
2. Classify: misunderstood, wrong tool, bad format, should have refused
3. Change one thing at a time
4. Regress on the same set and check for damage
5. Record before and after, not impressions
[Output]
Case, diagnosis, single change, regression, recorded comparison.
[Do not]
- Never change three things at once
- Do not judge on one or two examples
- 'Reads better' is not a result
- No conclusions without casesWhat to state before it starts
Leave these unsaid and the model fills them with an assumption. Most 'wrong answers' start here.
- the full transcript
- was the goal modified mid-conversation
- is the goal restated each turn
Go through each of these
Where this kind of work most often goes wrong. Already in the prompt, so you do not have to remember it.
- find the turn where the goal drifted and what triggered it
- check whether a follow-up was treated as a new task
- restate goal and known facts at the start of each turn
- a rule to tell a follow-up from a changed requirement