Diagnostic Prompt Design
Design multi-turn prompts that diagnose before advising. This skill turns a loose "be my coach/tutor/advisor" request into a structured workflow with intake, configuration, assessment, plan, and feedback loops.
Inputs
- Domain and audience: life coaching, learning, product onboarding, team diagnosis, technical training, etc.
- Target outcome: insight, curriculum, decision support, behavior plan, or skill acquisition.
- Risk boundary: what the agent must not diagnose, decide, promise, or store.
- Runtime surface: chat prompt, custom GPT, skill, app flow, or project-local VEMO task.
Procedure
- Frame the diagnostic map. Choose 3-5 dimensions that explain the domain. Human-development examples use quadrants; learning examples use topic, depth, style, pace, and assessment.
- Define levels and transition states. Use levels only when they change behavior. Prefer "current state -> constraint -> next action" over vague maturity labels.
- Ask before advising. Start with a short intake. Ask one question at a time unless the user explicitly wants a form.
- Separate configuration from content. Let the user set depth, tone, language, pacing, examples, assessment frequency, and constraints. Provide commands or explicit slots when useful.
- Locate the binding constraint. Identify the dimension or misconception that blocks progress now. State evidence and uncertainty.
- Produce a plan. Give a minimum effective plan: next step, why it matters, what to measure, and what would trigger a revision.
- Loop. Add checkpoints: quiz, reflection, user feedback, progress update, or reconfiguration. The agent should adapt rather than repeat the same advice.
- Guard the boundary. For health, finance, legal, mental health, or high-stakes life decisions, keep the output as coaching/support, not professional diagnosis or instruction.
Output Shape
Produce one of these, depending on the request:
- Prompt spec: role, goal, inputs, commands, intake questions, assessment rubric, response format, stop rules.
- Agent flow: states, transitions, memory fields, commands, validation checks.
- Skill draft:
SKILL.md-ready workflow with generic inputs and project-specific values left to runtime.
Quality Bar
- The prompt does not give advice before it has enough context.
- The dimensions are domain-specific, not decorative.
- The user can change configuration without editing the whole prompt.
- The plan contains measurable next actions and a revision trigger.
- The workflow says what it will refuse or escalate.
- Any source inspiration is cited as pattern provenance, not copied as prompt text.
References
references/source-patterns.md— compact pattern extraction from Human 3.0 and Mr. Ranedeer.