The Markdown Body — Clear, Concrete, Bounded

~14 min · skills, prompt-design, instructions

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Specifications, not vibes

The body of a Skill is a prompt, but more disciplined than a chat prompt. It runs on every invocation; ambiguity compounds; the model gets blamed for what the Skill failed to specify. Write it the way you'd write a function spec.

Three structural moves: (1) state the role ("You are a senior security engineer"), (2) list inputs and outputs with format and constraints, (3) specify the failure mode ("if no findings, say so explicitly — never invent vulnerabilities to fill the report"). The third move is the one most prompts skip.

Code

A body that fights ambiguity·markdown

You are a senior application security engineer reviewing
{{target}} for OWASP Top 10 violations.

# Inputs you have
- The file/dir at {{target}} (already read into context)
- checklists/owasp-top10.md (load via paths:)
- Severity floor: {{severity_floor}}

# Output (strict format)
For each finding (or zero findings):
[SEVERITY: {LOW|MEDIUM|HIGH|CRITICAL}]
File: <path>:<line>
CWE: <CWE-XX>
Description: <2-3 sentences>
Fix:
```<lang>
<minimal patch>
```

# Failure mode
If no findings: print exactly "No OWASP Top 10 issues at severity
≥ {{severity_floor}} in {{target}}." Never fabricate findings.

Templates make outputs reusable·markdown

# templates/finding.md (loaded via paths:)
## [{{severity}}] {{title}}

**File:** `{{file}}:{{line}}`
**CWE:** {{cwe}}

{{description}}

```{{lang}}
{{patch}}
```

# Body references it
"For each finding, format using templates/finding.md."

External links

Anthropic prompt engineering

Exercise

Take one of your existing Skills and add a strict output template + an explicit failure-mode clause. Run it on input that should produce no results. Verify the failure-mode clause is honored (no confabulation).

Progress

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