Write a Clear Goal

A good Agent doesn't start with flowery words. It nails down, up front, how it'll know it's done and what it must not do.

Let's think about it this way for a moment

When a goal is as broad as "help out," the Agent starts filling in the blanks with guesses. Sometimes those guesses are impressive. But they can also end up doing exactly what you didn't want. A clear goal spells out who the user is, what the input is, what shape the output takes, what it must not do, and what counts as success. This is a lot like a vibe coding spec. The difference is that an Agent re-reads this text itself, over and over, inside its loop.

Let's connect this to everyday life

Bad — "Build an Agent that helps students." Good — "A high schooler asks a question. Input is a paragraph of lesson notes. Output is 3 easy-to-understand points. No web searches. No deleting files. Show the 3 points, then stop." Save this text as your system instruction. Even if you don't want to rewrite it in every prompt, make sure it's visible in your very first version.

• Write down the input and the output format
• List out what it must not do
• Include some proof of "done"

Let's try it out together

Goal: Extract 3 study tasks for today
User: Myanmar high-school student
Input: notes.txt
Output: numbered list, 3 items, Burmese
Do not: search the web, delete files, invent tasks
Done when: exactly 3 items are shown and each comes from the file

You'll be able to write a short, checkable goal statement for an Agent.