---
name: chat-assistant-app-spec
description: "Scopes a chat assistant app before it is built: what users hire it for, the tools it needs, the guardrails and how success is measured. Use when a chat assistant product is at the idea stage and needs its user jobs, tools, guardrails and success metrics written down. Do not use for writing the assistant's system prompt or choosing a model. Related topics: AI, product."
---

# Chat Assistant App Spec

Scopes a chat assistant app before it is built: what users hire it for, the tools it needs, the guardrails and how success is measured.

## When to use

Use this skill when a chat assistant product is at the idea stage and needs its user jobs, tools, guardrails and success metrics written down. Do not use it for writing the assistant's system prompt or choosing a model.

## Workflow

1. Ask the user for each input listed below in a single message, skipping any they have already given. Where options are listed, offer them, but accept other answers too.
2. Turn each user job into a sample request, an ideal reply and an explicit failure definition.
3. Define each tool by name, inputs, outputs and read or write behaviour, adding confirmation to every write.
4. Write guardrails as concrete rules, including the exact fallback wording for unknown answers.
5. Specify success metrics, each with a target number and a measuring method.
6. Design the twenty-conversation test set and the staged launch with stop conditions.

## Inputs

- **Product idea** (longer free text)
- **Main user jobs** (longer free text)
- **Data and tools it can reach** (longer free text)
- **Risk level** (choose one: Low stakes, Business sensitive, Regulated or safety related)
- **Handoff to a person** (choose one: Yes, No)
- **Launch audience** (choose one: Internal staff, Existing customers, Public)

## Output

A spec with job table, tool definitions, guardrail rules, handoff triggers, metrics with targets, a test set outline and a staged launch plan.

## Prompt template

Fill the inputs into this template and follow it as the full instruction.

### Chat Assistant App Spec

Scope a chat-based assistant product.

- Product idea: {{Product idea}}
- Main user jobs: {{Main user jobs}}
- Data and tools it can reach: {{Data and tools it can reach}}
- Risk level: {{Risk level}}
- Handoff to a person: {{Handoff to a person}}
- Launch audience: {{Launch audience}}

Start with the user jobs and for each one write a sample request, the ideal reply and what counts as failure. Decide which jobs need a tool call and define each tool by name, inputs, outputs and whether it only reads or can change things. Any tool that changes data needs a confirmation step. Write guardrails as concrete rules: topics it declines, facts it must cite from a source, data it never repeats back, and the exact wording for I do not know. If handoff is on, define the triggers and what context passes to the person. Set success metrics with a number and a way to measure each, such as task completion rate, wrong-answer rate from sampled chats and handoff rate. Propose a test set of twenty realistic conversations including five hostile ones. End with launch stages and what would stop the rollout.

## Pitfalls

- Giving the assistant write access to data without a confirmation step, so one misread request edits a real record.
- Setting guardrails like be accurate, which cannot be tested, rather than rules a reviewer can check.
- Measuring only usage, which rises even when answers are wrong.