Sharpen three weak prompts

kind: drill

Rewrite so each names the target state, the place in the code and the check: "write tests", "make it faster", "clean up this class".

Solution

For example: "Add tests for BookingService.book covering full session, past session and happy path; use JUnit 5 as in MemberServiceTest; all tests must pass with mvn test." The improvement is not politeness or length — it is that the result can now be judged without asking what you meant.

Catch a confident mistake

kind: drill

Ask an agent for a method that uses a library you know well, then check every call against the real API documentation.

Solution

Invented or renamed methods appear regularly, and they look right. The lesson is the check, not the score: compile it, run it, and look up anything you have not used yourself. A method that does not exist fails immediately; one that exists with different semantics fails much later.

Verify before committing

kind: drill

Have an agent produce a change of about thirty lines, then read the diff line by line and mark every line you could not explain to an examiner.

Solution

The marked lines are your homework, not the agent’s. Either you understand them after reading the documentation, or they should not be in your repository — the oral exam does not accept "the agent wrote it".

Agree on rules in your team

kind: project

Write down in your project README how your team uses agents: what is allowed, what is verified before merging, and what never goes into a prompt.