Sequential Prompting — Why Order Matters
In sequential prompting the order is the intelligence: definitions before judgments, evidence before conclusions, plans before execution.
Overview
Most prompt sequences fail not because the steps are bad but because they're in the wrong order — judging options before defining criteria, executing before planning, concluding before gathering evidence. Sequential prompting is the discipline of ordering prompts so each one has what it needs when it runs. This resource loads a documentation goal whose generated sequence demonstrates the universal ordering rules: clarify the outcome first, decompose second, gather inputs before producing, review against the definition of done.
Workflow
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Build the loaded sequence
The documentation goal uses the General library — the purest expression of the ordering rules.
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Spot the dependencies
Each step consumes the previous step's output by name. Swap any two steps mentally and watch the logic break.
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Apply the rules to your sequence
Definitions before judgments, inputs before production, review against the Step 1 definition — check your own prompt order against these.
Why This Works
- Order encodes dependency — a step that runs before its inputs exist can only hallucinate them
- An explicit definition-of-done step gives every later step a fixed reference point
- Review-against-definition closes the loop that open-ended review never closes
Best for
- Anyone whose multi-prompt sessions wander or contradict themselves
- Goals where the definition phase keeps getting skipped
- Process-minded teams writing their first prompt sequences
Not for
- Reordering the lines inside one prompt — that's the Prompt Formatter
- Tasks with one step — order needs more than one thing to matter
Use cases
- Fixing a prompt sequence that produces confident output from undefined inputs
- Learning the ordering rules that apply to any workflow type
- Re-ordering an existing prompt list into a working sequence