Prompting each agent well

A strong Scrambo program assigns decisions to the right specialist and makes constraints testable.

Include concrete editorial requirements

Useful prompt ingredients include:

• deliverable and audience;
• exact or bounded duration;
• canvas or orientation;
• named source roles and required assets;
• narrative order;
• pacing and cut style;
• audio policy;
• text that must appear exactly;
• accessibility requirements;
• explicit exclusions;
• a clear definition of the ending.

Instead of:

Make a cool social video.

Prefer:

Create a 12-second 9:16 teaser for first-time runners. Start with the shoe
touching pavement, reveal the group by 3 seconds, cut on the next four drum
beats, and hold the smiling finish for the final 2 seconds. Use no dialogue,
no captions, and no more than one title: RUN TOGETHER.

Repeat critical constraints at handoffs

The storyboard receives the source brief, and the author receives the plan, but specialists do not share hidden conversational memory. Put selection evidence in the scout prompt, structure in the storyboard prompt, and styling in the relevant refinement prompt. Repeat non-negotiable requirements—duration, required wording, source-audio policy—where the responsible agent needs them.

Ask for observable outcomes

Prefer keep captions within two lines and clear of faces over make captions nice. Prefer duck music beneath every spoken section over balance the audio. Concrete outcomes give both the editing agent and validators something to act on.