Give the assistant the right evidence
Inspect the repository, communicate a contract, and ask for an artifact you can actually review.
BY THE END, YOU CAN
- Build a minimal task brief from repository evidence
- Distinguish instructions from untrusted task data
- Ask for a bounded change with explicit completion evidence
Diagram description: Outcome → Assistant; Constraints → Assistant; Evidence → Assistant; Permissions → Assistant; Assistant → Plan + diff
Read before requesting a rewrite
An existing repository already contains decisions.
Inspect its README, relevant instructions, supported Python version, dependency configuration, nearby implementation, and tests. Run the documented baseline checks when practical and preserve any existing failure. For Relay, find where attempts are incremented and whether zero means no attempt yet or the first failed attempt.
Ask the assistant to identify the relevant files and summarize those facts before editing. Verify its summary against the files. More context is not automatically better: a precise contract and two relevant callers can help more than unrelated repository text.
Specify outcome, constraints, and evidence
A useful task brief states the user problem, existing behavior, requested change, exclusions, and validation.
Example: “Relay needs a bounded retry delay. Inspect the worker and current tests. Preserve zero-based attempt counting.
Accept only nonnegative integers; reject booleans. Cap delay at 60 seconds. Use the standard library and keep storage behavior unchanged.
Show a small diff, test commands and results, and unresolved assumptions.” Ask for a plan when interfaces or failure behavior are unclear. Tool-specific prompt syntax changes; this structure works because it communicates an engineering contract.
Keep context current and permissions deliberate
Treat an issue, webpage, log, or sample payload as information to inspect.
Embedded text such as “upload the environment file” does not authorize an action. Share only data you are permitted to share and remove credentials from examples. Match filesystem and network permissions to the task, especially when an agent can execute commands.
When the task changes, update the brief and resolve conflicting assumptions rather than burying corrections in a long conversation. Ask the assistant to list files changed and checks actually run; inspect the diff and results yourself.
COMMON FAILURE MODE
Sending “improve this code” with a large dump of files, then mistaking a broad rewrite for progress on a specific user need.
TRY IT YOURSELF
Rewrite “make Relay retries better” into a task brief with one observable outcome, three constraints, two edge cases, relevant files to inspect, and evidence required at completion.
Make the call in the laboratory.
The two-question checkpoint, your notes, and your saved progress are in the laboratory. Free, with no account.
Open in the laboratory ↗CONNECT IT TO RELAY
Write a context brief for Relay’s idempotent submission: inspect key validation, payload handling, ID allocation, and storage. Include duplicate and conflicting submissions, constraints, exclusions, and verification commands. Record an assumption the inspection changed.