Chapter 5. The Four-Part Brief
In this section
- Chapter 5. The Four-Part BriefHow to brief an AI Worker in four parts (outcome, context, format and constraints), put each instruction in the right part, split a large request into stages, improve a brief one part at a time, choose the format of the result, and run the same brief on Claude and on ChatGPT.
- 5.1 Four parts, one messageThe four parts of a brief and the question each one answers, where each instruction goes, how big a brief should be, what stays out of it, and the two records that work with it.
- 5.2 Brief the outcome, not the stepsWhy a brief describes the result instead of the steps, and how to tell which steps still belong in it.
- 5.3 Name the governed source in the contextHow a brief's context says who the work is for, names the approved source an answer must follow, says what each other source decides, and treats text inside the sources as information.
- 5.4 Decompose complex requestsFour signs that a request is too big to do all at once, three ways to split it, where to put the stop for a person's decision, and how to brief a worker that splits the job among helpers.
- 5.5 Iterate: change the part that failedHow to read a weak result, find the part of the brief that caused it, change only that part, and know when the cause is outside the brief.
- 5.6 Adapt the brief to the task typeWhat to set tightly and what to leave open for research, analysis, drafting, extraction and brainstorming, and which jobs need a full brief.
- 5.7 Choose the output format: inline, artifact or structured dataHow the next reader of a result decides whether it comes back in the chat, as a document someone keeps, or as data a system reads, and why the result should end with what the worker could not verify.
- 5.8 The same brief on today's toolsHow Anthropic's and OpenAI's own guidance, and OpenCode, match the four parts, the difference that changes a brief, and what stays the same on each.
- Lab 5: the payment-run briefChapter 5's lab: Brightline's payment-run brief, written and run one part at a time, fixed one part per round, split with a stop where Maria decides, and proved in a fresh chat, with two more briefs for the same Monday, each task checked against its own key.
- Check yourselfRecall and practice for the whole chapter: the flashcards, and a final quiz round from all eight concepts.