RISEN prompts: what it is and when to use it
Role, Instructions, Steps, End goal, Narrowing. RISEN is a structure for longer, multi-step tasks. It sets the role and instructions, lays out the steps, states the end goal and then narrows what to include or avoid.
When to use it
Use it for projects with several stages, such as research briefs or multi-part documents, where you want control over the route and the result.
The parts
- Role
- Who the AI should act as.
- Instructions
- What to do, in plain terms.
- Steps
- The order to work in.
- End goal
- What a finished result looks like.
- Narrowing
- What to exclude and which limits apply.
Example RISEN prompts
- Diagnose why my AI chatbot gives off-topic or irrelevant answersPinpoints whether the problem is the prompt, retrieval, context, or settings, and gives targeted fixes plus test cases to confirm them.
- Review and improve a prompt I already wroteAudits your prompt for objective, context, constraints, inputs, output format, quality criteria, and verification, then rewrites it.
- Pull the 5 things I need to know from a long report or updateCuts a long report, thread, or update down to the five points that matter, each with evidence, implication, and action.