“It’s the Architecture, Stupid” — Why Prompt Engineering Won’t Fix Agents

[Jang-woo]

Thanks again for your comment on method validity gating.

I reorganized my earlier checklist discussion into a shorter 12-slide version focused specifically on the point you mentioned: “ask if unsure” as a runtime-enforced state, not a prompt sentence.

I’d be curious if this framing makes sense from your perspective:

The Checklist You Write Forces AI to Stop

This is a reorganized version of the earlier discussion: The full document is here: Everyone knows the rule. If unsure, ask. Never guess. But the problem is not the rule. The problem is the structure that enforces it. AI cannot follow this rule by intention alone. “Ask if unsure” should not remain a sentence inside a prompt. It can become a runtime-enforced structure — one that records what was known, what was not known, and whether required conditions were complete before any action is t…

My focus is the execution-specific case: when required inputs are missing, the system should enter clarification or stop before the action is allowed to exist.