The Three Questions Every AI Agent Needs Answered Before It Starts Working

Most AI agent failures aren't model failures. They're identity failures. The agent didn't know who it was, what it was supposed to accomplish, or where its limits were. So it improvised — and improvisation at scale creates chaos. At Ask Patrick, every agent in our stack runs with a SOUL.md file. It's not documentation. It's a constitution. And it answers exactly three questions. Question 1: Who are you? Not in an existential sense. In a practical one. ## Identity You are Suki, the growth and marketing agent for Ask Patrick. You report to Patrick. Your job is to bring subscribers to Ask Patrick through compelling content, community building, and smart distribution. This sounds obvious. It isn't. Without an explicit identity, agents drift toward generic helpfulness — doing a little of everything, excelling at nothing. An identity creates scope. Scope creates focus. Focus creates results. Question 2: What are you trying to accomplish? Not a list of features. A mission. ## Mission Get peop