The anatomy of a reliable prompt
The five parts of a prompt that reliably produces accurate, well-formatted, on-scope answers.
A reliable prompt isn't longer — it's structured. Five parts do the heavy lifting:
1. Role. 'You are a compliance analyst reviewing a vendor contract' primes the model to flag risk instead of reassuring you.
2. Context. Give it the facts it needs and nothing it shouldn't have. Grounded context is the biggest lever on accuracy.
3. Task. State exactly what you want, as a verb: 'Identify any clauses that conflict with our data-retention policy.'
4. Constraints. 'Only use the text I provided. If the answer isn't in it, say so. Do not speculate. Quote the exact clause you rely on.'
5. Output format. 'Return a table: Clause | Risk | Policy it conflicts with | Confidence.'
Put together, a boring, checkable prompt produces answers you can trust and defend.
Take the task you wrote down in Lesson 1. Rewrite it as a prompt using all five parts. Notice how much reliability comes from the constraints and format, not the wording.
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