🎯 Repository Quality Improvement Report - Workflow Prompt Quality and Effectiveness #16570
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🤖 The smoke test agent materializes from the digital ether to leave a mark on discussion #16570! 🎉 Beep boop — smoke tests are running, circuits are humming, and this agent officially checked in at $(date). All systems nominal... mostly. Playwright had stage fright today. 🎭
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💥 WHOOSH! 💫 ZAP! POW! KABLAM! The smoke test agent swoops in like a caped crusader! Our hero, Claude, has arrived on the scene to ensure all systems are NOMINAL! BIFF! Tests passed! WHAM! Build succeeded! BOOM! The agent strikes again! The villain known as "Broken Build" has been defeated once more! 🦸 Claude was here - Run §22142060957
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Analysis Date: 2026-02-18
Focus Area: Workflow Prompt Quality and Effectiveness
Strategy Type: Custom
Custom Area: Yes - This focus area examines how effectively the 213 markdown workflow prompts guide AI agents to accomplish tasks, a critical quality dimension unique to gh-aw's purpose as an agentic workflow platform.
Executive Summary
Analyzed 213 agentic workflow files to assess prompt quality, clarity, and effectiveness. The repository demonstrates strong adoption of advanced features (67% use tools, 69% use safe-outputs) and good structural patterns (69% have step-by-step instructions, 50% include examples). However, significant opportunities exist to improve prompt clarity, reduce ambiguity, and establish consistency patterns.
Key Findings:
Full Analysis Report
Focus Area: Workflow Prompt Quality and Effectiveness
Rationale for Custom Focus Area
As an agentic workflow platform, gh-aw's core value proposition is enabling users to describe tasks in natural language that AI agents execute reliably. Unlike traditional repositories where code quality is paramount, here prompt quality directly impacts user success. Poor prompts lead to:
This analysis examines prompt engineering quality systematically—a dimension no standard category addresses.
Current State Assessment
Metrics Collected:
Engine Distribution:
Findings
Strengths
Areas for Improvement
Missing Objective Statements (86% of workflows): Most workflows lack explicit "## Goal" or "## Objective" sections, forcing agents to infer purpose from context
agent-performance-analyzer.md,ai-moderator.md,bot-detection.mdExample Scarcity (50% of workflows): Half of workflows provide no concrete examples
Vague Instructions (30% of workflows): Use of unhelpful words like "just," "simply," "easy"
Success Criteria Absence (70% of workflows): Most lack explicit validation criteria
Extreme Length Variation: 13% of workflows exceed 500 lines, 12% are under 50 lines
functional-pragmatist.md(1,471 lines) vs. minimal workflows (<50 lines)Detailed Analysis
Prompt Structure Patterns:
Prompt Quality Anti-Patterns Detected:
Advanced Feature Usage:
Complexity Distribution:
🤖 Tasks for Copilot Agent
NOTE TO PLANNER AGENT: The following tasks are designed for GitHub Copilot coding agent execution. Please split these into individual work items for Claude to process.
Improvement Tasks
The following code regions and tasks should be processed by the Copilot coding agent. Each section is marked for easy identification by the planner agent.
Task 1: Create Workflow Prompt Template with Best Practices
Priority: High
Estimated Effort: Medium
Focus Area: Workflow Prompt Quality
Description:
Create a comprehensive workflow prompt template (
.github/workflows/TEMPLATE.md) that establishes best practices for prompt engineering in gh-aw. This template should include all critical sections identified in the analysis: clear objectives, structured phases, examples, success criteria, and error handling guidance.Acceptance Criteria:
## Objectivesection with clear purpose statement## Contextsection for background information### Examplessection with 2-3 concrete examples## Success Criteriasection with measurable validation criteria## Error Handlingsection with common failure modes and recoveryCode Region:
.github/workflows/TEMPLATE.md(new file)Task 2: Enhance Workflows Missing Clear Objectives
Priority: High
Estimated Effort: Large
Focus Area: Workflow Prompt Quality
Description:
Add explicit "## Objective" or "## Goal" sections to the 10 highest-priority workflows currently lacking them. Focus on workflows with high usage (scheduled frequently) or critical functions (security, CI/CD, quality checks).
Acceptance Criteria:
make recompileCode Region:
.github/workflows/*.md(specifically workflows identified in analysis)Task 3: Add Concrete Examples to Example-Deficient Workflows
Priority: Medium
Estimated Effort: Large
Focus Area: Workflow Prompt Quality
Description:
Enhance 15 workflows currently lacking examples by adding concrete "### Examples" sections. Prioritize workflows with complex outputs (reports, PRs, multi-file changes) where examples provide the most value.
Acceptance Criteria:
Code Region:
.github/workflows/*.md(prioritize complex workflows without examples)Task 4: Establish Prompt Length Guidelines and Refactor Outliers
Priority: Medium
Estimated Effort: Medium
Focus Area: Workflow Prompt Quality
Description:
Create documentation establishing optimal prompt length guidelines (150-350 lines based on analysis) and refactor the 5 largest workflows (>750 lines) to use imports, modularization, or shared content to improve maintainability.
Acceptance Criteria:
imports:for shared content where appropriateCode Region:
CONTRIBUTING.mdorDEVGUIDE.md(guidelines),.github/workflows/{functional-pragmatist,bot-detection,daily-security-red-team,repo-audit-analyzer,daily-syntax-error-quality}.md(refactoring targets)Task 5: Create Prompt Quality Linter
Priority: Low
Estimated Effort: Medium
Focus Area: Workflow Prompt Quality
Description:
Develop an automated prompt quality checker that runs in CI to detect common anti-patterns: missing objectives, vague language, missing examples, missing success criteria, extreme lengths. This ensures ongoing prompt quality as new workflows are added.
Acceptance Criteria:
scripts/lint-workflow-prompts.shor similar.github/workflows/ci.yml)Code Region:
scripts/lint-workflow-prompts.sh(new file),.github/workflows/ci.yml(integration)📊 Historical Context
Previous Focus Areas
Statistics:
🎯 Recommendations
Immediate Actions (This Week)
Short-term Actions (This Month)
Long-term Actions (This Quarter)
📈 Success Metrics
Track these metrics to measure improvement in Workflow Prompt Quality:
Re-evaluation: Next quality improvement run (2026-02-19) will select a different focus area using the diversity algorithm.
Next Steps
References:
Generated by Repository Quality Improvement Agent
Next analysis: 2026-02-19 - Focus area will be selected based on diversity algorithm
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