Describing work well
A vague request and a clear one are the difference between a useful agent and a confused one.
Moonage runs on plain English. No canvas to wire, no if-this-then-that to build — you say what you want, and the agent does it. But plain English is a wide road, and a vague request leaves the agent guessing. Three habits close that gap.
Name the trigger, the action, and the boundary
Every good request answers three questions. When should the agent act? What should it do? When should it stop, or check with you first? Miss one and the agent fills the gap with a guess. Answer all three and there is nothing left to misread.
The boundary is the one people skip, and it matters most. It marks which moves are yours to make. A clear boundary lets an agent move fast on the safe work and pause on the rest — instead of freezing on everything or charging ahead on the wrong thing.
Compare a vague request to a sharp one
The same task can be asked two ways. One gives the agent nothing to work with. The other hands it a trigger, an action, and a boundary in a single sentence.
The sharp version is barely longer. Clarity is not about writing more — it is about naming the three things and leaving the rest out.
Reusable patterns
You don't have to start from scratch. A handful of phrasings cover most of the work you'll ever hand an agent.
For monitoring, say "Watch X for Y. When Y happens, do Z." For anything on a schedule, say "Every weekday at 9am, do X. Send the result to Y." When you want the agent ready but holding, say "When I say go, do X. Pause before Y" — the pause is your safety stop. And for work you want proposed rather than shipped, say "Whenever someone in @team asks about X, draft a reply. I'll send it" — a Drafter-rung phrasing that keeps the final move in your hands.
Where a request lands on the trust ladder shapes how you phrase it. Lower rungs draft and propose; higher rungs act and pause only for the riskiest moves. Match the boundary to the autonomy you've granted, and the agent does exactly as much as you trust it to.
- Every good request names a trigger, an action, and a boundary — the boundary is the one people skip.
- A sharp request is barely longer than a vague one; clarity comes from naming three things, not writing more.
- Lean on the reusable phrasings, and ask the agent to repeat back when you're unsure.