What agent directives are and how to write them

The useful part

What are AI agent prompts and how to write them Back Find the right learning path for you Free resources Practical tutorials Helpful tools Explore Tutorials Agentic AI AI agents. Add Hostinger as a preferred source on Google AI agent prompts are instructions that tell an AI agent what to achieve, what information and tools to use, what limits to follow, and what counts as a successful result. Unlike a regular prompt that asks for a single response, an agent prompt guides the agent through a task where it needs to make decisions, use tools, and respond to what happens next.

How it works

• A support agent might need to decide whether to issue a refund or escalate a request, while a research agent might need to choose which sources to use and assess whether there is enough evidence to complete...
• To write an effective agent prompt, define what the agent needs to do, what it can use, what limits it must follow, and how it should know when the task is complete.
• An agent prompt also needs instructions for what happens during the task, such as when to use a tool, when to ask for approval, how to handle a failure, and what proves the task is complete.
• An AI agent prompt works by guiding the agent through a repeating process: understand the task, choose an action, review the result, and decide what to do next.
• Multi-step tasks that combine planning, tool use, and evaluation are called agentic workflows.

What to take from it

The way agents use tools affects prompt design because access to tools changes which instructions you need to write. Test normal, ambiguous, failed, and high-risk cases. That difference matters when an agent has to do more than generate an answer.

Example or evidence

• A competitor-research agent, for instance, might search for current data, compare the results with what it needs, spot gaps, run another search, and prepare the final brief.
• Context Context is the business data, users, files, definitions, task inputs, and current state that the agent needs to do its work.
• "Research competitors" leaves the scope and result open to interpretation.
• AI agent prompts are instructions that guide an AI agent through entire tasks.

Details worth keeping

What are AI agent prompts and how to write them Sep 18, 2026 / By Alma F. ChatGPT Claude.ai Google AI Grok Perplexity Follow: They define the goal, provide relevant context, set rules and limits, identify the tools and resources the agent can use, and explain what a successful result looks like and when the agent should stop.

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