---
title: Five-Field Delegation Brief
type: artifact
level: L1
status: live
revision: 1
updated: 2026-08-14
systemVersion: 4.2
tags: [download, delegation, template]
rating: 7.30
ratingAxes: useful 9 · evidence 6 · pull 7 · original 6 · form 8
ratingKind: derived
source: derived from live agent briefs
---

# Five-Field Delegation Brief

_Written 2026-08-14 · last verified 2026-08-14 · system v4.2 · live_

**TL;DR** — Five fields — task with its reason, context, output shape, limits, and required self-verification. The reason field is the one that changes results, because a sub-agent that knows why can make the small judgement calls the brief did not anticipate.

## What it is

A brief for delegating one task to a sub-agent.

```markdown
**TASK + WHY**
What to do — and why it matters. The second half is not
decoration; it decides every judgement call you did not anticipate.

**CONTEXT**
What exists already, what was tried, what constrains this.
Sub-agents start with no history.

**OUTPUT**
Format, length, structure. And what NOT to produce.

**LIMITS**
Source requirements · confidence marking · what to do when
uncertain · explicit permission to return "not found".

**VERIFICATION**
Ask it to state: how many independent sources, which claims
rest on one, and the single thing it is least sure about.
```

## How to use

Fill all 5 fields. In roughly 200 briefs the pattern is consistent: the ones that came back unusable were missing either the reason or the limits, and almost never the context.

Fill all five. The temptation is to skip **limits** and **verification** because they feel like overhead on a simple task — those two are the difference between a report you can use and a report you have to check by hand.

The single highest-yield line is 1 sentence of permission to fail. Without an explicit *"if you cannot find it, say so"*, an agent optimising for a complete-looking answer produces one, and the gap is invisible.

One more property worth keeping: the brief fits on a screen. A delegation brief that runs past that is usually a task that should have been split into 2, and splitting it is cheaper than writing the longer brief.

## What to fill in

Everything. But if you only have time for two fields, use **why** and **verification** — the first improves the work, the second tells you how much to trust it.

## License

MIT.