Intention and context
Tell the agent what to achieve, why it matters, and what it needs to know on day one.
What it is
Intention is the first thing an agent needs to receive: what should be achieved and why it matters. The task tells what to do; the why tells what to protect when a case shows up that you didn’t anticipate. In the Agent Sheet, this is the field “What do you want to take out of your hands? Why does that matter?”. An agent with the right task and no why executes well the wrong thing.
Why learn
No instruction covers all cases. When a doubt arises, the agent needs a criterion to choose, and the why is that criterion. In a clinic, “confirming consults” without a reason turns into sending a message and done; with “30% of patients don’t show up and the schedule stays empty,” it understands that the important thing is knowing who won’t come in time to fit someone else in.
Key concepts
- Task: the concrete action, with a verb and an object.
- Why: the real problem the task solves.
- Outcome: what changes when it goes right.
- Priority: what to protect when there’s doubt.
What it is
Scope is the size of the work you deliver: where the task starts and where it ends. “Taking care of my business” isn’t a task—it’s a whole job with dozens of different decisions. A good agent gets only one task, with clear input and output, like “check the month’s documents and list what’s missing.”
Why learn
When an agent does five things and gets some wrong, you don’t know which part failed. With one task per agent, each mistake has an address, each test is simple, and each autonomy level can be different: what only answers questions can have more freedom than what handles money.
Key concepts
- Job: the big whole, like serving customers.
- Process: one part with a beginning and an end, like post-sale follow-up.
- Task: a repeatable action, like informing an order status.
- Delivery: what comes out at the end, like the message sent.
What it is
Every real task has priorities that clash: speed versus accuracy, friendliness versus firmness, doing everything versus doing it right. The tie-break rule is a sentence that says which priority wins when the two can’t both fit together. It’s written in the instruction, not in your head.
Why learn
Without a tie-break, the agent chooses on its own, and the choice changes from day to day. A support agent who answers quickly with an invented deadline pleases today and creates complaints tomorrow. Writing the order of priorities makes behavior predictable and easier to correct.
Key concepts
- Clash: two good things that don’t fit together.
- Winner: the priority that wins, written out in full.
- Action on doubt: what to do when no rule resolves it.
- Review: adjust the rule when a real case shows it failed.
What it is
Context is everything the agent needs to know about your environment to decide well: house rules, tone, schedules, what you never say to the customer. The best way to gather this is to imagine the first day of a new employee—what, in a company, is called onboarding, the integration of whoever is arriving. What you’d explain at the door, the agent also needs to hear.
Why learn
The agent doesn’t know your clinic, your store, or your team. Without the house rules, it fills the gap with the internet’s default: it messages on Saturday, calls the patient for you, promises what it can’t. A short block of rules prevents most of those silly mistakes.
Key concepts
- House rules: what always applies here.
- Tone: how to speak to people.
- Schedules: when it can act and when it can’t.
- Never say: topics that aren’t theirs.
What it is
More context isn’t better context. Context engineering is choosing what goes into the agent’s instruction and cutting the rest. The cutting question is simple: does this information change any of its decisions? If it doesn’t, it goes out.
Why learn
Too-long instructions hide important rules in the middle of text that doesn’t matter, and the agent starts giving the same weight to the company’s history and the rule about not talking about price. A lean context is easier to read, test, and fix when something goes wrong.
Key concepts
- Gather: list everything that seems relevant.
- Ask: does it change any decision of the agent?
- Cut: remove what changes nothing.
- Test: check whether it still decides correctly without what was removed.
What it is
Adjectives like “cordial,” “professional,” and “objective” mean different things to each person. An example shows exactly what you want. The simplest technique is to put in the instruction a good response and a bad response for the same case, explaining why one is good and the other isn’t.
Why learn
An agent copies patterns much better than it interprets adjectives. A model answer teaches tone, length, the order of information, and what not to say—all at once. And the bad answer shows the mistake you fear most, which usually helps avoid repeating it.
Key concepts
- Case: a real and common situation.
- Good answer: the text the way you want it.
- Bad answer: the common error, in full.
- Reason: one line that explains what differentiates the two.