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How to ask your agent: tips for good instructions

The way you ask changes what you get. This page shows what made the requests in our recipes work, using the exact words we typed, so you can write your own.
Time needed 10 minutes to read
You need Nothing yet. To try a tip: an agent connected to an AI model
Result You know what to put in a request so the agent does the right thing the first time

Every example below is a real request from a recipe we ran on a LusoVPS agent. Click the link under it to see what the agent did with it.

1. Say what, when and where to deliver

For a task that runs on its own, give three things: what to do, when, and where to send the result. (Schedule a recurring task)

Create a scheduled job named 'Morning briefing': every weekday at 08:00 Lisbon time, send me on Telegram: today's weather in Porto (min/max and rain), the 3 most important news headlines in Portugal, and one short motivational line. Keep it under 10 lines.

What made it work:

  • When: every weekday at 08:00 Lisbon time. Always say the time zone, so the job runs when you expect.
  • Where: send me on Telegram. (Hermes delivers to the home channel: set it once with /sethome.)
  • What: three items, each one precise (min/max and rain, the 3 most important).
  • A name: 'Morning briefing'. Later you can simply say "move the Morning briefing to 07:30".

Recipe: A morning briefing every weekday

A one-time reminder needs the same, in fewer words:

Remind me on Telegram in 3 minutes: 'Call the accountant about the VAT return'.

Recipe: Reminders on Telegram

2. Say how long and in what format

Tell the agent the length and the shape of the answer. Otherwise it decides for you.

Create a scheduled job named 'Weekly sales report': every Monday at 09:00 Lisbon time, read workspace/sales-october-2026.csv and send me on Telegram a 5-line summary: total revenue, best and worst product, best day of the week, and one suggestion.

A 5-line summary followed by exactly what goes in it: the report arrived as five lines, one per item. Recipe: A weekly sales report on Telegram

Saying what you do not want helps too. This is the prompt of our n8n order form:

Write 2 or 3 friendly sentences that confirm this cake order, speaking directly to the customer. Plain text only: no subject line, no emoji. Say we will email them if anything changes.

In our first try, without no subject line, Claude started the confirmation with Subject: Order Confirmation – ..., like an email. Adding those words fixed it. Recipe: A simple order or booking form

The news digest asks for "Write exactly 5 lines, one per headline, each under 20 words, in plain English. No introduction, no title, no markdown." Without no markdown, Claude sometimes adds stars and other symbols. Recipe: A daily news digest

3. Say the language

Name the language, and the variety if it matters.

I run a small bakery in Porto. Write 5 short Instagram posts for next week (Monday to Friday), one per day, in European Portuguese, each with 2 or 3 hashtags and an idea for the photo. Save them in workspace/instagram-week.md and show them to me.

Recipe: A week of social media posts

If the agent answers in Brazilian Portuguese or in English, say it plainly, as in the instructions of our n8n email helper: "in European Portuguese (Portugal, not Brazil)". Recipe: An AI helper that turns rough notes into customer emails

4. Name the file and the folder

When the agent works with files, give the exact path, starting with workspace/, both for what it reads and for what it saves.

Now open workspace/sales-october-2026.csv (my bakery sales). Tell me in English: total revenue for October, revenue per product from best to worst, the best day of the week, and one practical suggestion. Also save a bar chart of revenue per product as workspace/sales-october-chart.png.

The chart was then in FILES → workspace, ready to download. Recipe: Analyse your sales spreadsheet

5. List exactly what you want to know

"Summarise this" gives you the agent's choice. A list of questions gives you yours.

Read workspace/supplier-agreement.pdf and give me, in English: a 3-line summary, the key dates and deadlines, the costs, and anything risky for me as the customer.

The answer listed the last day to cancel before automatic renewal, worked out the cost of a minimum order, and pointed out the risky clauses. Recipe: Hermes reads a contract for you

For a table, name the columns:

Look at the receipt photos workspace/receipt-1.png, receipt-2.png and receipt-3.png. Make a spreadsheet workspace/expenses-november.csv with one line per receipt: date, shop, what was bought, total in EUR, payment method. Then give me the total, and tell me if anything on the receipts looks wrong.

Recipe: Turn receipt photos into an expenses spreadsheet

6. Ask it to point out problems

The end of the receipts request, "tell me if anything on the receipts looks wrong", made Hermes list real problems: quantities written in different ways, and receipts without a tax number or VAT line. Ask for this whenever the result goes to someone else, such as your accountant. (Receipts recipe)

Asking for what is missing works too:

Read workspace/meeting-notes.txt. Give me a table of action items (who, what, deadline), list anything without a clear deadline, and write a short follow-up email to the team in English. Save it all in workspace/meeting-actions.md.

"List anything without a clear deadline" gave a separate list of the points the team still had to decide. Recipe: Meeting notes into action items

7. Ask for sources

For anything you will base a decision on, ask for a link for each point in your first message.

I want to sell my bakery products online in Portugal. Research and give me, in English, with a source link for each point: 3 options to take online orders (platform, approximate monthly cost, pros/cons), and the main legal obligations for selling food online in Portugal. Max 15 lines. Save it as workspace/online-shop-research.md.

Every point in the saved file had a link, and Hermes said where its figures came from and what it did not cover. Open the links for anything important. Recipe: Research a business question, with sources

8. Give the facts, and watch for guesses

The agent does not know your business. When facts are missing, it fills the gaps.

  • In our social media test, Hermes invented a product and some times, and said so at the end: "I invented some details … Tell me what doesn't match reality and I'll adjust." Give it the facts first, for example: "This week we have bolo-rei and broa; we open at 7:00; orders by phone until 17:00." (Social media posts)
  • In the meeting notes test, where the notes were vague ("from Monday"), Hermes showed the words from the notes and its guess in brackets. Check those guesses; if one is wrong, give the right date and ask again. (Meeting notes)
  • For a helper that writes to customers, put the rule in its instructions: "Keep every fact from the notes. Do not invent prices, dates or promises." (AI text helper)

Always read what the agent writes before you send or post it. (Keep your agent safe)

9. Say what to keep unchanged

When the agent rewrites or translates, tell it what must not change.

Now translate workspace/menu-pt.txt into English and Spanish for tourists. Keep the Portuguese name of typical items (like pastel de nata) with a short explanation, keep the prices exactly, and save workspace/menu-en.txt and workspace/menu-es.txt. Show me the English one.

All seven prices were unchanged in both files, and typical items kept their name with an explanation. Recipe: Translate a menu or price list

10. Ask for a test you can see

Do not wait for something to go wrong to find out if an alert works. After the hourly website check, we asked:

To test the alert, create a one-off job named 'Alert test' that runs in 1 minute, checks https://shop.example.invalid the same way as 'Shop website check', and sends me the alert on Telegram.

A minute later, the alert arrived on Telegram. Recipe: Get an alert when your website is down

The check itself also says what to do in each case: "If it does not, send me an alert on Telegram with the error. If it works, send nothing."

11. Improve the answer in the same chat

You do not have to write the perfect request the first time. Ask for changes in the same conversation, in a few words:

  • "Make Wednesday's post funnier", "Shorter, max 2 lines" (Social media posts)
  • "shorter please, 3 sentences max": in our n8n email helper, Claude rewrote the same email without us repeating the notes (AI text helper)
  • "Make it sound natural for a British tourist" (Translate a menu)
  • "show me the first 10 rows and the columns you used", when numbers look wrong (Analyse your sales spreadsheet)

12. Write repeated rules once

If you give the same instructions every time, save them once:

  • Hermes skill: describe the task and its rules in plain words, and give the skill a name. Hermes then uses it whenever the task comes up. If it does not, name it in your request: "use the customer-reply-style skill". (Teach Hermes a skill)
  • Hermes memory: "Please remember this for the future: my business is a bakery called Padaria Lopes, in Porto." (What Hermes remembers about you)
  • n8n System Message: fixed instructions for every message. Write it like a note to a new employee: who the agent works for, what it gets, what it must produce, in which language, and what it must never do. (AI text helper)
  • OpenClaw skills: if the assistant does not use a skill, say it in your message: "Use your weather skill: what is the weather in Lisbon right now? Answer in one sentence." (Skills in OpenClaw)

A short checklist

Before you send a request, check that it says:

  • What you want, as a list if there are several parts.
  • When, with the time zone, for anything scheduled.
  • Where to deliver it (Telegram, a file) and the exact file path.
  • How long and in what format, and what you do not want.
  • Which language.
  • The facts the agent cannot know, and source links if you will decide on it.

Next steps