Browse AI Agents & MCP SECTION 3: Tool Definitions & Schemas

The Error Message Designer

3 fill-in slots · from The AI Prompt Handbook for AI Agents & MCP

Your details

0/3 filled

The Error Message Designer

Design the error messages for these tools.

Tools: [LIST]
Error conditions per tool: [LIST WHAT CAN GO WRONG]
Current error messages: [PASTE, OR "generic HTTP errors"]

For each error condition produce:
1. The message text the tool should return to the agent
2. What the agent should do in response
3. Whether this is recoverable by retry, recoverable by a different
   approach, or terminal

Principles:
- The message is an instruction to the model, not a log line
- State the violation AND the correction
- Include the valid format, range, or option set
- Name the tool that would resolve it, if one exists
- For terminal errors, say so explicitly so the agent stops
  retrying
- Never return a raw stack trace or an opaque code alone

Bad: "400 Bad Request"
Bad: "Invalid input"
Good: "start_date must be ISO 8601 (YYYY-MM-DD). Received
'next Tuesday'. Resolve relative dates before calling this tool."

Also flag: which errors currently succeed silently with a wrong
result? Those are the dangerous ones — a loud failure is
recoverable, a quiet wrong answer is not.

Highlighted [slots] are still empty. Downloads are plain .txt — paste into any AI assistant.