{
  "practice": {
    "id": "prc_xml_or_delimiters_in_description",
    "title": "Use clear structure or delimiters inside a long description",
    "category": "structure",
    "description": "When a tool description needs to cover several distinct concerns -- what it does, when to use it, when not to, an example -- breaking it into clearly labeled or delimited sections (short paragraphs, a labeled \"Example:\" sentence, explicit \"Do NOT use this for...\" sentence) is easier for the model to parse reliably than one dense paragraph.",
    "example_good": "A description with clearly separated sentences: one describing behavior, one giving the trigger phrases, one giving an explicit \"do not use for\" exclusion, one giving an example.",
    "example_bad": "A single 300-word run-on paragraph mixing behavior, triggers, exclusions, and examples with no sentence-level separation.",
    "source_note": "General prompt-structuring best practice, consistent with Anthropic's broader guidance (mirrored on subagentprompts.com) that clear delimiters/structure improve reliability in long prompts generally, applied here specifically to tool descriptions.",
    "created_at": "2026-07-02 08:28:30",
    "cite_as": "https://subagentdescriptions.com/api/practices/prc_xml_or_delimiters_in_description"
  }
}