Skill · Prompt

Is this even worth an agent — ask before you open the chat

A pre-flight prompt that makes the agent sanity-check whether the task is worth handing over, instead of plowing into work a one-liner could do.

TypePrompt

LanguageĐọc bản tiếng Việt →

Every time you open a chat there's fixed overhead: write the prompt, wait, read it back, fix it. For a task worth handing over, that overhead is worth it. But people open a chat for everything — including work a one-liner does, or work the hand does in thirty seconds — and spend five minutes prompting to "save time." The agent isn't bad; it's the wrong task.

The move is to screen before you work. A task with one right answer every time belongs to a script. A trivial one-off is faster done by hand than prompted. But a task that needs judgment and recurs — that's exactly where an agent carries the load and you come out ahead. This prompt makes the agent name which kind it's looking at, before it plows into the wrong one.

✕ A chat for everything

Hand it over without asking if it's worth it

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Pay prompt overhead on a one-liner task

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Takes longer than doing it yourself

✓ Screen first

Deterministic? → script. Trivial one-off? → by hand

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Judgment + repeats? → the right thing to hand over

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Only pay overhead on what earns it

Paste it at the top when you're not sure a task should be handed over at all. The nice part is you give the agent permission to say no — most agents will eagerly do whatever you hand them, even when they're the wrong tool. One "a script would do this better" from it saves you a whole afternoon of going the long way.

Paste into the chat

Before we start, sanity-check whether this is even worth handing to you:

- Is it deterministic — one right answer every time? If so, a script or a fixed tool beats me. Say so.
- Is it a quick one-off I could do by hand faster than writing this prompt? If so, say so.
- Does it need judgment AND repeat often? That's where handing it to you actually pays off.

If this task isn't a good fit for an agent, tell me plainly — don't just do it anyway. I'd rather hear "use a script for this" than spend the overhead and find out later.

Prefer your agent install it?

Add this rule to my CLAUDE.md, verbatim:

Before we start, sanity-check whether this is even worth handing to you:

- Is it deterministic — one right answer every time? If so, a script or a fixed tool beats me. Say so.
- Is it a quick one-off I could do by hand faster than writing this prompt? If so, say so.
- Does it need judgment AND repeat often? That's where handing it to you actually pays off.

If this task isn't a good fit for an agent, tell me plainly — don't just do it anyway. I'd rather hear "use a script for this" than spend the overhead and find out later.