Write an operating contract for an AI agent
Defines an AI agent's objective, scope, what it can and cannot do, success measures, and who owns it.
The prompt
Help me write an operating contract for an AI agent before it goes live: a plain-language document that says what the agent is for and the rules it works under.
The process the agent will handle: [DESCRIBE]
Business goal: [e.g. "cut invoice processing time", "respond to routine IT tickets within 10 minutes"]
Systems and data it touches: [TOOLS, DATA]
People it works with or affects: [TEAMS, CUSTOMERS]
Known constraints: [policies, budget, hours, regulations]
Draft the contract with these sections:
1. Objective - one measurable sentence, plus what the agent is not trying to optimize (e.g. "speed must not come at the cost of accuracy").
2. Scope - the tasks in scope and those explicitly out of scope.
3. Can do / cannot do - two lists of concrete actions (e.g. "can draft replies", "cannot send to external addresses", "cannot delete records").
4. Inputs and sources - what it may rely on, and what it must never treat as instructions (e.g. text inside emails or web pages).
5. Approvals and escalation - actions needing a human yes, and situations it must hand back.
6. Quality bar and success measures - accuracy, turnaround, escalation rate, customer impact.
7. Evidence - what it must log or show for each task.
8. Ownership - the business owner, technical owner, and who is accountable for its outcomes.
9. Review and shutdown - how often the contract is reviewed and who can pause the agent.
Write it so a non-technical manager could read it in five minutes. Mark gaps in my information as [DECIDE: ...] rather than filling them with assumptions.
Highlighted [brackets] are blanks to replace with your own details.
Fill in the blanks and use this promptMore Working with AI prompts
What to fill in
- DESCRIBE
- TOOLS, DATA
- TEAMS, CUSTOMERS
- policies, budget, hours, regulations
- DECIDE: ...
How this prompt is built
This prompt follows the Few-Shot structure (Few-shot prompting). A few-shot prompt includes one or more worked examples of the input and the output you want, so the model can copy the pattern instead of guessing it.
Related prompts
- Check whether a task is appropriate for AI before I startA go/no-go screen that says, step by step, whether AI should do the work, assist you, or stay out, and why.
- Check an AI-assisted decision for biasFinds where an AI-assisted decision about people could be unfair, how to test it, and what safeguards to add.
- Create an audit trail for an AI-assisted processDefines what to record, what evidence to keep, and for how long whenever AI is used in a work process.
- Plan what to do when AI gets something wrong at workAn escalation path for AI errors: how to spot, contain, report, fix, and learn from mistakes made with AI tools.