Guide Library

Week 3 · Guide 4 of 6

Foundations

Find What’s Missing Before You Start

Field Guide

  • 20–30 minGuided walkthrough

When someone hands you a task in a line or two, have your agent run a short gap check before you start: what the request says, what you'd be guessing and what's missing. Then ask whoever gave it to you the few questions that would change the work, so you don't make the wrong thing.

You’ll leave with

A gap check for a real request, saved where you keep that task, and the few questions worth sending.

What You Need for This Guide

  • A request someone gave you, in the words it reached you, and anything that came with it.
  • Your approved AI tool.
  • The place you keep that task.

Choose the tool you’re allowed to use

Your approved tool

The tool your company approved.

Pick your approved tool above to see the steps and screenshots for it.

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5 steps · At your own pace
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Standard Data rules for AI at work

Data Rules

Data rules for AI at work

Check with your IT Team before you paste any work data into an AI tool. Avoid names, account numbers, customer data, or anything sensitive without explicit permission from IT. If you aren't sure, redact anything sensitive and replace it with generic information. AI makes mistakes, make sure to fact check your agents outputs even if they sound right.

Before you start

  • Check with your IT teamAsk what your company allows before you put anything from work into an AI tool. Your company policy is the one that counts, and it is the one this library cannot see.
  • Use the tool your company approvedChatGPT, Claude, Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and Gemini are all covered here. Use the one your company approved, not the one you like best.
  • Sign in with your work accountA work account keeps your chats inside the agreement your company signed. A personal account in the same product sits outside it.
  • Connected appsAn email or file connection your IT team approved can read the names and addresses in what it opens. Everything else under “Never put this into an AI tool” still applies.
  • No approved account yetFollow the steps with made-up example text, or on paper, until IT gives you one.

Never put this into an AI tool

  • Customer or personal detailsNo names, email addresses, phone numbers, home addresses or account numbers. That covers colleagues as well as customers.
  • Regulated recordsHealth, financial, HR and legal records stay in the systems built to hold them, unless IT has told you in writing that this tool may see them.
  • Passwords, keys and access codesNo credentials of any kind, yours or anyone else’s, and nothing that grants access to a system.
  • Anything under an NDA or not yet publicUnreleased plans, contracts, pricing and source code need clearance before they go near a chat window.
  • Anything your company policy prohibitsYour company’s rules win over anything in this library. If policy keeps something out of AI tools, it stays out, whatever a guide suggests.

Do this instead

  • Swap real details for placeholdersWrite “Customer A”, “[client name]”, “$X”. You get the same quality of answer, and you put the real details back yourself.
  • Describe the situation rather than pasting the documentMost of what an agent needs is the shape of the problem, not the file it arrived in.
  • Trim a file before you upload or paste itTake out the identifying columns and pages first, or work from a short extract.

Check the answer before you use it

  • Read it as if a colleague had drafted itAn agent states wrong things with complete confidence. Your name goes on the work, so the check is yours.
  • Say where the agent helpedFollow your company rule on disclosing AI assistance, especially in client-facing or formal work.

When you are not sure

  • Ask before you paste or upload, not afterA question to your IT team takes a minute. Cleaning up after a data incident takes a great deal longer.
  • When in doubt, leave it outIf you would not put it in an email to someone outside the company, keep it out of the chat.
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Step

Choose a request and gather it

  1. Pick something you've been asked to do and haven't started. Short requests leave the most to guess:

    • a one-line ask, such as “Can you pull something together on this for Friday?”
    • a ticket, work order, committee task or email from the public with half the details
    • at home, a family event someone asked you to plan

    If nothing comes to mind and you have an , open a new chat with it attached or pasted, or open a chat in the Project or Notebook where you saved it. Replace the bracketed words on the card below with a request I've been given but haven't started and send it. Find the message or notes for the one you choose.

    Find a task or decision
    Using my Agent Profile and my answers, help me choose one small task to try or decision to think through. If my profile is missing from this conversation, ask me to attach or paste it before continuing. Do not assume I have a pending task or decision, or that it relates to a project in my profile.

What I'm looking for: [a task to try or a decision to make]

For now, help me identify and describe what I want to work on. Do not carry out the task, compare the decision's options, decide for me, or make a plan.

Ask me up to three short questions, one at a time, about work I need to get done or a choice I expect to face. If nothing is pending, ask about a recurring task or choice.

With each question:
- Offer two or three short suggested answers based on my role, responsibilities, priorities, or projects in my Agent Profile.
- Write these options directly in your response as a numbered list.
- Present them as possibilities for me to confirm, not tasks or decisions you assume I have.
- Include “Something else / none of these.”
- Let me choose a number, combine options, or answer in my own words.

Wait for each answer before continuing. Use my answer to shape the next question, and stop asking as soon as we have a clear task or decision I want to work on.

If we still have several possibilities, suggest up to three specific tasks or decisions of the kind I'm looking for, grounded in my profile and answers. Show them as a numbered list. Describe each in a sentence or two, including what I would give you, what you could help me produce or compare, and what I would still need to check or decide myself. Keep them small enough for me to try. Include “Something else / none of these” alongside those choices. Ask which one I want to work on, and wait for my choice.

Once I choose, write one sentence in my voice naming only the task I selected or the decision I want to think through. Use the details I confirmed in my answers; do not add details from my profile to the description unless I confirmed their connection to this task or decision. Omit details I have not provided rather than making a statement about them. For a decision, describe what needs to be decided without making the decision.

Return that description in one copyable code block. Include only the selected task or decision description. Then stop and wait for my next prompt.

If I have already named a clear task or decision I want to use, skip the questions and options and give me that description directly.

Use only facts in my profile and answers. Do not invent details, commitments or authority. If details should not be shared, let me describe the general pattern instead, and keep missing details uncertain.

    Without an Agent Profile, use a request you get regularly, such as a weekly schedule, written the way it usually reaches you.

  2. Gather three things:

    • the request, in the words it reached you
    • anything that came with it, such as a file or an earlier message
    • anything you know about it that isn't written down

    Copy the request rather than retelling it. A retelling often carries your own guess about what was meant, and your agent can only separate what was said from what you'd be guessing if it sees the words themselves. If the request was spoken, write it down as close to the words used as you can, and keep your own reading of it, such as “I think they mean the board meeting”, with what you know.

    Check the data rules before you paste or attach anything. Describe people by role, and swap details the rules keep out for placeholders such as [client].

Step

Ask your agent for a gap check

Open a new chat, paste the card below, fill in its three bracketed parts with what you gathered and send it.

Check what's missing before I start
Download
Before I start on the request below, help me find what's missing. Do not start the work itself.

The request, in the words it reached me:
[paste the request, or write down what was said as close to word for word as you can, with names swapped for roles]

What came with it:
[paste the parts the request is about, or attach it and give its name here, or describe it in a line if the data rules keep it out, or write "nothing"]

What I know that isn't written down:
[anything you were told or already know about it, with your own reading of the request marked "I think", or write "nothing"]

If you can't open or read something I attached, tell me and stop.

Sort what I gave you into four parts, one short line per item:

KNOWN: only what the request, the material or my note above actually says. Keep it to what bears on the request: what's wanted, for whom, by when and from what. Do not summarize the material. After each line, say where it came from: the request, the material (by name) or my note. Anything from elsewhere, such as my Agent Profile, earlier in this chat, or a file or page you found, goes under ASSUMED with where it came from.

ASSUMED: what you or I would have to guess in order to start, such as who it's for, the format, the length or what counts as done. Say what each guess is based on.

MISSING: what the work needs that nothing here answers.

QUESTIONS: up to five questions for the person who asked, chosen because their answers would change what I make, how much work it is, when it's due or who it's for. After each, say in a few words what the answer would change. Leave out anything I can find in the material myself, and anything where every likely answer leads to the same work. If no question would change the work, say so.

Rules:
- Work only from what I gave you in this message. Do not search the web or open my files, mail or other connected sources.
- Keep the hedges in what I gave you. If the request, the material or my note says "maybe", "about", "I think" or "if possible", do not turn that into a firm fact.
- If the request reads like my summary of what was said, say so, and put any format, length or audience it names under ASSUMED.
- Do not fill a gap with a guess. A guess goes under ASSUMED.
- Do not contact anyone or send anything.

Expect a reply in four parts: Known (what's said in the request, the material that came with it or your note of what you know, with its source), Assumed (what someone would have to guess), Missing (what nobody has said) and up to five Questions for whoever asked, each with what its answer would change.

A short request usually brings a long Missing list. If the agent starts the work instead, ask in the same chat for the four parts first.

Step

Check what it calls known

  1. Each Known line ends with its source: the request, the material or your note. Find the words there that say it. If you can't, the line is an assumption, however much it looks like a fact. Look hardest at deadlines, the audience, the format, an “all” or “every”, and any lost hedge, such as “maybe Friday” becoming “due Friday”.

  2. In the same chat, name each line to move and why: “Move the council meeting to Assumed. The email only says Friday.” If you know something it marked as assumed, say how, such as “my manager told me”, and ask for it under Known. Ask for all four parts again and recheck Known. If every line already checks out, keep the list as it is.

Step

Keep the questions that would change the work

  1. Keep a question when a different answer would change what you make, how much work it is, when it's due or who it's for. Cross off any the material already answers, and any where every likely answer leads to the same work. Add your own if one is missing. If none would change the work, there's nothing to send, so skip to step 5.

  2. In the same chat, send the card below with who asked, the questions you kept and any plan you'd be glad to hear a yes to.

    Turn my questions into a short message
    Draft a short message I can send to [who asked, by role, such as my manager] with the questions I'm keeping from the latest gap check above. Do not send it.

If there's no gap check in this chat, ask me to paste the one I saved, and stop.

Questions I'm keeping, with any plan I want to offer:
[the question numbers from the latest list, or the questions in your own words. After any question, you can add "my plan:" and what you mean to do unless they say otherwise]

- Open with one sentence on what I'm working on, using only the KNOWN lines, and say I'd like to check a few things before I start.
- Number the questions, most important first.
- Where I've written a plan after a question, add it in one sentence, such as "I'm planning on a one-page summary unless you'd rather have slides", so they can answer with a yes or a correction. Do not offer any other guess as my plan.
- Do not add questions I didn't keep, and do not add facts that aren't in the latest gap check.
- Keep it under 120 words, in plain words I'd use with them.

  3. Check that the draft asks only your questions, offers only your plans and adds no new facts. Then rewrite it in your own words and send it yourself.

Step

Save your gap check and start while you wait

  1. Copy the corrected lists and any questions you kept to where you keep this task, with the date and, if you sent questions, who you asked.

  2. To start the work now, use the card below in the same chat, choosing outline, plan or checklist in its brackets. It drafts from the Known lines and marks each open point [OPEN].

    Start a first pass with the gaps marked
    Using the latest gap check above, draft a first-pass [outline, plan or checklist] for this request so I can start while I wait for answers.

If there's no gap check in this chat, ask me to paste the one I saved, and stop.

- Build it only from the KNOWN lines.
- Where an open question, or anything under ASSUMED or MISSING, would decide a part, put OPEN and what's needed there, inside square brackets, instead of choosing an answer.
- Do not treat anything under ASSUMED as decided.
- Keep it short. I'll fill in the open parts when the answers come back.

    Check that each part rests on a Known line or is marked [OPEN], then save it with your gap check.

  3. When answers come back, move each one to Known in your saved gap check with who said it and when. If you made a first pass, fill in its matching [OPEN] marks.

  4. Download the card from step 2, save it in My Agent Files or another folder you can find, and edit it to fit your work. Use it in a new chat on your next short request.

Find What’s Missing Before You Start

Confirm your result

Confirm the outcomes below to finish this guide.

Final checks

Your gap check for a real request is saved with that task, and every Known line points to the request, its material or something you were told.

You have the questions that would change the work, five at most, in your own words and ready to send to whoever asked, or you've checked that none would.

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Next in Week 3

Teach Your Agent Which Sources to Use

Continue in the suggested order, or choose another guide for your task.

View Week 3 guides