Atlassian Support

# Writing Rovo instructions

Documented in
[Write instructions for your Rovo agent](https://support.atlassian.com/rovo/docs/write-instructions-for-your-agent/),
Atlassian recommends how to write clear, concise instructions to define your Rovo agent's role and behavior.

Instructions are used when creating (or editing)
an agent to customize it to your needs.
They define things like:
* The expectations or the purpose of your agent.
* The limitations -
what you'd like the agent to do and not do.
* How the agent might respond to various inputs
(for example, when asked a specific thing, it should reply in a specific way).
* How the agent should interact with people
(for example,
you may want your agent to have a particular tone -
like "always respond like a pirate").

If you're looking for tips on chatting with agents
and the kinds of prompts you'd write day-to-day,
see Chat with an agent.

You provide instructions in a few key places in your agent.
* To define its **Behavior** so it has overarching goals and personality.
* Within **Scenarios** so it knows how to act in different situations.

## Tips and best practices

Writing good instructions is an art,
and you'll most likely need to iterate on your instructions a few times
to get your agent working just right.

To make your instructions more effective:
1. Keep your instructions relatively short to start with
  a. Shorter prompts are easier to iterate on
(you can track how small changes to the prompt improve or worsen the agent's performance).
It can be harder to troubleshoot or iterate on a longer prompt.
  b. Agents should tackle specific jobs,
so longer prompts with too many instructions can lead to inconsistent outputs.
This is because, rather than actioning the full list of instructions,
the agent will choose parts to prioritize.
2. Provide a role, tasks, and the relevant context to completing that job
  a. **Role**:
The agent's role is the name for the job you're giving them.
For example, if you're making an agent to help you make decisions on projects,
you might say:
"You are a project manager who's great at making unbiased decisions."
  b. **Job**:
Jobs can be written as one or multiple scenarios
where you expect your agent can help people.
To use the previous example, you might say:
"You have the following jobs:
Reviewing an existing decision,
Finding related decisions,
Providing additional resources or best practices
to help with effective decision making."
  c. **Context**:
This is where you can choose to go very detailed,
or keep it light.
Context is essentially any extra detail
you think your agent might need to deliver on its jobs.
Context could include referencing the agent's knowledge or skills,
and giving specific examples with example outputs.

## Example instructions

The examples below are a great place to start
but it's important to know that sometimes
more advanced instructions will have much longer, more detailed prompts.

Agent use case

Example instructions used for the agent's behavior

Example instructions for the agent's default scenario

### Atlassian Rovo Support agent

Example behavior: