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All categories/Agents and automation

Debugging agents · Level Advanced · Debugging Agent Prompt

Prompt review: the sentence that confuses it

The agent behaves inconsistently and the system prompt may be at fault.

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 behaves inconsistently and the system prompt may be at fault.

[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 prompt
   - the failure symptoms
   - cases that work
3. Say how you plan to do it (at most 5 steps) and wait for my go-ahead.

[Go through each of these]
- mark sentences that can be read two ways
- find requirements that contradict each other
- identify requirements the model cannot check
- give a revised version with reasons

[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 cases

What to state before it starts

Leave these unsaid and the model fills them with an assumption. Most 'wrong answers' start here.

  • the full prompt
  • the failure symptoms
  • cases that work

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.

  • mark sentences that can be read two ways
  • find requirements that contradict each other
  • identify requirements the model cannot check
  • give a revised version with reasons