Prompt Engineering

Sequential Prompting — Why Order Matters

In sequential prompting the order is the intelligence: definitions before judgments, evidence before conclusions, plans before execution.

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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.

How to use this resource

Build the loaded sequence

The documentation goal uses the General library — the purest expression of the ordering rules.
Spot the dependencies

Each step consumes the previous step's output by name. Swap any two steps mentally and watch the logic break.
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

FAQ

Why must the outcome-definition step run before decomposing a goal into components?

So each component is judged against a fixed reference. The excerpt's note spells it out: "the outcome definition exists before decomposition, so every component is judged against an explicit definition of done." STEP 1 defines what done looks like — who judges it, the constraints, what's excluded — and STEP 2 breaks that into 4-7 components, each consuming Step 1's output by name.

How do I actually run a generated multi-step prompt sequence?

Paste one step at a time. The "How to run it" line says paste each step into the same conversation, validating the output before continuing — because each step consumes the previous step's output, running them out of order (or all at once) means a step fires before its inputs exist and can only hallucinate them. The Multi-Step Prompt Builder produces the sequence; you run it.

Customize This Resource

Opens this goal in Multi-Step Prompt Builder. Build the workflow to get every step's prompt — then adjust type, complexity, and step count.

Open in Multi-Step Prompt Builder

Prompt Template

Copy it as-is, or use Open in Multi-Step Prompt Builder to load it pre-filled and customize it with your own context.

MULTI-STEP PROMPT WORKFLOW (excerpt)
Goal: Create complete onboarding documentation for our public API

STEP 1 — CLARIFY THE OUTCOME
Objective: Define what done looks like before any work starts.
Prompt:
For this goal: "Create complete onboarding documentation for our public API" — define the outcome precisely.
State: what exists when this is done, who judges it, the constraints (time, budget, quality), and what is explicitly not part of it.
Output: an outcome definition with constraints and exclusions.
Expected output: A precise definition of done.

STEP 2 — DECOMPOSE INTO COMPONENTS
Objective: Break the goal into independent pieces that can each be tackled alone.
Prompt:
Break the outcome from the previous step into 4–7 components.
For each: what it produces, what it depends on, and roughly how much of the total effort it represents.
Output: a component list with dependencies.
Expected output: Components with dependencies.

The ordering rule at work: the outcome definition exists before decomposition, so every component is judged against an explicit definition of done.

How to run it: paste each step into the same conversation, validating the output before continuing.

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