Indictment: 'Good and not too long' is not a brief — it's a shrug with a keyboard attached. The model will produce a generic 800-word puff piece that satisfies exactly no one.
see the specimen they pasted
write me a blog post about AI agents that's good and not too long
“write me a blog post”
Zero role, zero audience, zero angle — the model defaults to a Wikipedia-flavored explainer that no reader asked for and no editor would publish.
add: 'You are a tech journalist writing for a senior-engineer audience skeptical of AI hype'
“about AI agents”
'AI agents' is a topic the size of a continent — without an angle, thesis, or hook, the output will be a definition parade with bullet points no one reads past.
swap: 'about AI agents' → 'arguing one specific claim about AI agents, e.g. why they fail in production or why 2025 is their actual breakout year'
“that's good”
Tells the model to aim for quality without defining what quality means in this context — tone, structure, sourcing, voice, and opinion level are all left to chance.
add: 'opinionated, first-person voice, no definitions section, no bullet lists, opens with a scene not a statement'
“not too long”
'Not too long' is a non-constraint — the model has no idea if you mean 300 words or 1,200, and will guess wrong.
swap: 'not too long' → 'exactly 500 words'
You are a tech journalist with a sharp, opinionated voice — think Stratechery meets Wired. Your reader is a senior software engineer who has heard every AI pitch and rolls their eyes at hype. Write a 500-word blog post making one specific, arguable claim about AI agents in 2025. Suggested angle: why AI agents keep failing in production despite the demos looking flawless — but you may propose a sharper angle if you have one. Rules: - Open with a concrete scene or anecdote, not a definition or statistic. - State your thesis in the first 80 words. - No bullet lists. No numbered lists. Prose only. - No definitions section. Assume the reader knows what an agent is. - First-person voice is allowed and encouraged. - End with a single punchy sentence that reframes the whole argument. - Do not use the phrases 'in conclusion', 'it's clear that', 'the future of', or 'game-changer'. Format: plain paragraphs, a working headline, and one suggested subheading. Exactly 500 words, not counting the headline.
https://getmeerkat.dev/roast/3jujw8265r