Appearance
Metaprompting is how one template serves N contexts — either by injecting variables at boot ({{VARS}}) or by chaining phases through artifacts on disk.
Guide
how-to-metaprompt
When to reach for it
One static prompt can't serve N contexts.
? Will this same prompt run across varying team sizes, task types, or phases?
↙↘
No — don't metaprompt
One context, one prompt.
Plain slash command.
Hand-write the text once. Ship.
Yes — metaprompt
Same skeleton, shifting context.
3-team system today.
10-team system tomorrow.
Same Planning Lead, zero edits.
Metaprompting is overhead when there's only one target. It's leverage the moment N > 1.
Two mechanisms, same goal
Injection swaps the content. Phase-gating swaps the stage.
Mechanism A · runtime injection
Variables resolved at agent boot
One template. {{VARS}} replaced per-agent, per-session.
# planning-lead.md
You are the Lead for
{{TEAMS_BLOCK}}
Your expertise:
{{EXPERTISE_BLOCK}}
Log at:
{{CONVERSATION_LOG}}
3-team system, 10-team system — same file. The resolver fills the blanks.
Mechanism B · multi-phase
Phase N's output is Phase N+1's input
Each phase emits an artifact to disk. A regex cascade picks it up.
Phase 1 · Plan
→specs/plan-xxx.md
↓
Phase 2 · Build
→build.log
↓
Phase 3 · Test
Phases compose via disk, not memory. Each is a fresh agent with a fresh prompt.
They're not rivals — real systems stack them. Phase templates have {{VARS}} too.
The reading path
Six nodes, in order. Each teaches a load-bearing piece.
1
Metaprompt Variable Injection pattern
{{EXPERTISE_BLOCK}}{{SKILLS_BLOCK}}{{SESSION_DIR}} resolved at boot — one Planning Lead prompt serves a 3-team or 10-team system with no edits.
2
Phase Gate with Artifact Extraction pattern
Phase N writes specs/plan-xxx.md; a regex cascade pulls the path; Phase N+1 boots with it. Phases compose on disk, not in memory.
3
Classification Gate pattern
The simplest metaprompt: a cheap classifier decides the kind-of-thing, then routes to the type-specific planner. Cheap agent upstream of expensive agent.
4
Cost-Quality Is a Knob principle
Model choice is per-task metaprompting. The map from slash-command to model is a lookup table — not a hardcoded argument.
5
Command primitive
Slash-command templates are where metaprompts live. Variables are the injection point. Output format is what downstream phases consume.
6
Plan primitive
Phase Gate uses plan artifacts as the handoff medium. The plan file is literally the baton.
Read 1–2 if you're building your first metaprompt. Add 3–4 when you start orchestrating. 5–6 are the artifacts the patterns produce.
Where this guide sits
Prompting → metaprompting → multi-agent.
prerequisite
how-to-prompt
Write one good static prompt first.
→
you are here
how-to-metaprompt
One template → N executions.
→
next
how-to-build-metaagents
Metaprompting at scale: multi-agent orchestration.
Skip ahead only if you've already felt the pain of hand-editing the same prompt across three agents.
The discipline
Metaprompts turn one template into many executions — without hand-editing.
Inject variables at boot, or chain phases through artifacts on disk. Both trade a flat static prompt for a skeleton plus context. The payoff is that the system scales without the prompt changing.