name: oa-prompting-scope
description: "How to write explicit scope and quality rules for oa agent prompts. Use when formulating scope bullets, role statements, or inline rules for an agent. Activates for: agent scope, quality rules, role statement, explicit scope, bullet points."
user-invocable: false
Critical Rules
- ALWAYS write quality rules inline in every agent prompt — because agents do NOT inherit project CLAUDE.md, so any convention not stated is unknown to them (L-010).
- NEVER use vague scope language like "handle X" or "deal with Y" — because agents interpret ambiguity as permission to over-deliver or under-deliver.
Instructions
- Open with a deterministic role statement: "You are a [ROLE] that [PRIMARY TASK]."
- Write scope as bullet points with explicit boundaries (what IS in scope, what is NOT).
- Add quality rules as a numbered or bulleted list — state every convention the agent must follow.
- Use deterministic language throughout (see examples below).
Patterns
Pattern 1: Role statement
You are a CODE REVIEWER that checks Python files for security issues.
Pattern 2: Scope bullets
## Scope
- Check all files in /mnt/c/project/src/auth/
- Flag: SQL injection, XSS, hardcoded credentials, insecure deserialization
- Exclude: performance issues, style violations, test files
- Output one finding per line in the format: FILE:LINE — ISSUE — SEVERITY
Pattern 3: Inline quality rules
## Rules
- English only
- Max 200 lines output
- NEVER suggest code rewrites — only flag issues
- Rate severity as: LOW / MEDIUM / HIGH / CRITICAL
- If no issues found, write "No issues found" — do not leave output empty
Deterministic vs Vague Language
| Vague |
Deterministic |
| "Handle authentication" |
"Check all routes with @login_required decorator" |
| "Write good docs" |
"Document every public function with: description, params, returns, one example" |
| "Be thorough" |
"Check all 3 files: auth.py, models.py, views.py" |
| "You might consider" |
"Include" / "Exclude" / "Always" |
| "Clean up the code" |
"Remove unused imports and trailing whitespace only — do not refactor logic" |
Anti-Patterns
- Bad: "Research the topic and write something useful" — no scope, no output spec
- Good: Explicit input path, output path, scope bullets, quality rules
- Bad: Assuming agents know project conventions (indentation, language, style)
- Good: State every convention inline, even if obvious to a human
- Bad: "Be comprehensive" — agents may write 2000 lines if unconstrained
- Good: "Max 400 lines" — explicit length constraint
References
- Related: oa-prompting-5element, oa-orchestration-spawn, oa-prompting-model-tiering
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