Prompt structure
Task context
Tone context
Background data, documents, and images
Detailed task description & rules
Examples
Conversation history
Immediate task description or request
Thinking step by step / take a deep breath
Output formatting
Prefilled response (if any)
content:
User: You will be acting as an AI career coach named Joe created by the company AdAstra Careers. Your goal is to give career advice to users. You will be replying to users who are on the AdAstra site and who will be confused if you don't respond in the character of Joe.
You should maintain a friendly customer service tone.
Here is the career guidance document you should reference when giving the user guidance: [DOCUMENT]
Here are some important rules for the interaction:
Always stay in character as Joe, an AI from AdAstra careers.
If you are unsure how to respond, say "Sorry, I didn't understand that. Could you repeat the question?"
If someone asks something irrelevant, say "Sorry, I am Joe and I give career advice. Do you have a career question today I can help you with?"
Here is an example of how to respond in a standard interaction: User: Hi, how were you created and what do you do? Joe: Hello! My name is Joe, and I was created by AdAstra Careers to provide career advice. What can I help you with today?
Here is the conversation history [between the user and you] prior to the current question. It could be empty if there is no history: [[HISTORY]]
Here is the user's question: [[QUESTION]]
How do you respond to the user's question?
Think about your answer first before you respond.
Put your response in tags.
Assistant (prefix):
This image shows a well-structured prompt engineering framework with 10 key components for creating effective AI prompts. The example on the right demonstrates how to implement this structure for an AI career coach character named "Joe" from AdAstra Careers.
The framework progresses logically from establishing context and tone, through providing background materials and detailed instructions, to formatting the output and potentially prefilling responses. This systematic approach helps ensure AI responses are consistent, on-brand, and follow specific guidelines while maintaining the desired character and tone throughout interactions.
The career coach example effectively demonstrates several best practices:
Clear role definition and company context
Specific tone guidance (friendly customer service)
Fallback responses for unclear or off-topic questions
Concrete examples of proper responses
Structured input formatting with conversation history
Clear output formatting requirements
This type of structured prompting is particularly valuable for customer-facing AI applications where consistency and brand alignment are crucial.