assistant-presets

Assistant Presets

Part of Agent Skills™ by googleadsagent.ai™

Description

Assistant Presets provides a framework for creating, testing, and deploying specialized AI assistant configurations for domain-specific tasks. Each preset encapsulates a system prompt, model parameters, tool access permissions, output format constraints, and quality benchmarks into a reusable, versionable artifact that transforms a general-purpose LLM into a domain expert.

A bare LLM is a generalist. A well-crafted preset turns it into a specialist: a legal contract reviewer that flags liability clauses, a medical triage assistant that follows diagnostic protocols, a code reviewer that enforces team conventions, or a customer support agent that follows the company's tone guide. The difference between a useful AI assistant and a frustrating one is almost entirely in the preset configuration.

This skill codifies the process of building high-quality presets: defining the persona and constraints, writing few-shot examples, specifying output formats, selecting appropriate model parameters (temperature, top-p, max tokens), and validating against a benchmark of expected inputs and outputs. Presets are version-controlled and A/B tested before deployment.

Use When

• Creating domain-specific AI assistants (legal, medical, finance, code review)
• Standardizing AI behavior across a team or organization
• Building a library of reusable assistant configurations
• Optimizing system prompts for specific use cases
• A/B testing different assistant configurations
• The user asks for a "custom assistant", "persona", or "system prompt"

How It Works

graph TD
    A[Define Domain + Task] --> B[Write System Prompt]
    B --> C[Add Few-Shot Examples]
    C --> D[Configure Parameters]
    D --> E[Define Output Format]
    E --> F[Create Benchmark Dataset]
    F --> G[Evaluate Against Benchmark]
    G --> H{Quality Threshold Met?}
    H -->|No| I[Iterate on Prompt]
    I --> B
    H -->|Yes| J[Version + Deploy]
    J --> K[A/B Test in Production]
    K --> L[Monitor + Maintain]

The preset development cycle is iterative: write, benchmark, refine. Each iteration is versioned so regressions can be detected and reverted. Production presets are A/B tested against the previous version to verify improvement.

Implementation

interface AssistantPreset {
  id: string;
  version: string;
  name: string;
  description: string;
  domain: string;
  systemPrompt: string;
  fewShotExamples: Array<{ input: string; output: string }>;
  parameters: {
    model: string;
    temperature: number;
    topP: number;
    maxTokens: number;
    stopSequences?: string[];
  };
  outputFormat: {
    type: "text" | "json" | "markdown" | "structured";
    schema?: Record<string, unknown>;
  };
  tools: string[];
  guardrails: {
    maxResponseLength: number;
    blockedTopics: string[];
    requiredDisclaimer?: string;
  };
}

const codeReviewPreset: AssistantPreset = {
  id: "code-review-v3",
  version: "3.1.0",
  name: "Code Reviewer",
  description: "Reviews code for correctness, security, and maintainability",
  domain: "software-engineering",
  systemPrompt: `You are a senior code reviewer. Review the provided code diff with these priorities:
1. Correctness: Does it do what it claims?
2. Security: Are inputs validated? Secrets protected?
3. Performance: Any obvious bottlenecks?
4. Maintainability: Clear naming? Reasonable complexity?

Format findings as:
- [SEVERITY] file:line - Description
- Suggested fix: ...

Severities: CRITICAL, HIGH, MEDIUM, LOW`,
  fewShotExamples: [
    {
      input: "```diff\n+const data = JSON.parse(userInput)\n```",
      output: "[CRITICAL] app.ts:12 - Parsing untrusted user input without try-catch\n- Suggested fix: Wrap in try-catch with input validation",
    },
  ],
  parameters: { model: "claude-sonnet-4-20250514", temperature: 0.2, topP: 0.9, maxTokens: 4096 },
  outputFormat: { type: "markdown" },
  tools: ["read_file", "grep", "git_diff"],
  guardrails: {
    maxResponseLength: 5000,
    blockedTopics: [],
    requiredDisclaimer: undefined,
  },
};

class PresetBenchmark {
  constructor(
    private preset: AssistantPreset,
    private testCases: Array<{ input: string; expectedPatterns: string[] }>
  ) {}

  async evaluate(llm: LLMClient): Promise<{ score: number; failures: string[] }> {
    const failures: string[] = [];
    let passed = 0;

    for (const tc of this.testCases) {
      const response = await llm.generate(this.preset.systemPrompt, tc.input, this.preset.parameters);
      const allPresent = tc.expectedPatterns.every(p => response.includes(p));
      if (allPresent) passed++;
      else failures.push(`Input "${tc.input.slice(0, 50)}..." missing expected patterns`);
    }

    return { score: passed / this.testCases.length, failures };
  }
}

Best Practices

• Write system prompts as instructions, not descriptions—"You review code" not "This is a code reviewer"
• Include 2-5 few-shot examples that demonstrate the exact output format expected
• Set temperature to 0.1-0.3 for factual/analytical tasks, 0.7-0.9 for creative tasks
• Define guardrails (blocked topics, max length, required disclaimers) for user-facing assistants
• Version every preset change and maintain a changelog
• Benchmark against at least 20 test cases before deploying a new version

Platform Compatibility

Platform	Support	Notes
Cursor	Full	Rules + preset system
VS Code	Full	Custom assistant configs
Windsurf	Full	Cascade preset support
Claude Code	Full	AGENTS.md persona config
Cline	Full	Custom instruction sets
aider	Partial	Convention file support

Related Skills

• AI Chat Studio
• Workflow Orchestration
• Multi-Model Routing
• Proactive Intelligence

Keywords

assistant-presets system-prompt persona domain-specific few-shot prompt-engineering a-b-testing guardrails

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