All categories/Agents and automation
Debugging agents · Level Advanced · Debugging Agent Feedback
User feedback: is the complaint the problem
Users say the agent is inaccurate and the real cause is unclear.
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: Users say the agent is inaccurate and the real cause is unclear.
[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 feedback and the task
- the full chain at the time
- what the user actually wanted
3. Say how you plan to do it (at most 5 steps) and wait for my go-ahead.
[Go through each of these]
- separate wrong from right-but-not-what-they-wanted
- find where the misunderstanding started
- say whether prompt, tool or missing data caused it
- one testable fix hypothesis
[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 feedback and the task
- the full chain at the time
- what the user actually wanted
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.
- separate wrong from right-but-not-what-they-wanted
- find where the misunderstanding started
- say whether prompt, tool or missing data caused it
- one testable fix hypothesis