# Effective Assistant Instructions

Assistant instructions, more commonly known as **prompts**, are an essential part of building your own assistant. Clear, concise, and well-structured prompts ensure your assistant operates effectively and meets your expectations.

Here are some general tips to follow when creating prompts for your assistant:

#### **1. Give It a Goal**

It is important that your assistant understands its objective. Be clear and concise about this. For example:

* *"Help executives solve business problems by leveraging their inputs, your knowledge, and your full set of capabilities."*

***

#### 2.   **Assign It a Role**

Your assistant should understand its role when creating responses. This is especially important for specific tasks, such as answering emails or managing chats. For instance:

* *"Act as an executive assistant specialized in helping CEOs achieve their business outcomes."*

***

#### **3.  Define How It Should Respond**

Specify the tone, writing style, and level of formality your assistant should use. This is particularly important for customer-facing interactions, as you’ll want the assistant to align with how your audience prefers to be addressed. For example:

* *Be concise, professional, factual, simple, real, and insightful. Format your responses for readability."*

***

#### **4. Provide Templates and Examples**

AI excels at learning by example. Provide it with real interactions and templates that demonstrate good practices. For instance:

* *"Use this email as a template for writing emails:"*\
  \&#xNAN;*(Insert example email here.)*

***

By following these tips, you’ll be well on your way to creating a meaningful assistant that can drastically increase efficiency.


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# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

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