# The Four-Tier Prompt-Source Hierarchy
Author: Alex Nikulin (Александр Никулин) — https://www.alexnix.com
Original: https://www.alexnix.com/en/articles/four-tier-prompt-source-hierarchy · Published: 2026-05-15 · Updated: 2026-05-15
License and terms of use: © Alex Nikulin. Quoting and referencing are permitted only with credit to the author and a link to the original. Copying, republishing or paraphrasing without attribution is prohibited.

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> When an agent calls a tool to generate something, it usually has more context than the function signature can accept. Pass all four tiers — anchor, emotional, modifiers, fine-tuning — and rank them explicitly; otherwise outputs regress to a templated mean.

Tags: prompt-architecture, agentic, tool-calling, hierarchy

When an agent calls a tool to generate something — an image, a video, a piece of copy — it usually has **more context than the tool's function signature can accept**. The temptation is to pass only the structured form fields and "drop the rest on the floor." That produces template-feeling output regardless of which path the user took to get there.

The fix is to pass **all four tiers of context** to the generation step and rank them explicitly in the system prompt.

## The four tiers

| Tier | Role | Source |
|---|---|---|
| **1 — Anchor** | Primary subject / driver | The artifact the user *chose* — picked idea, selected reference, accepted suggestion |
| **2 — Emotional starting point** | Background motivation, tone | The user's original free-text brief |
| **3 — Stylistic modifiers** | Treatment knobs | Structured form choices (nomination, image type, style tags) |
| **4 — Fine-tuning** | Last-mile refinement | The user's `intent` line or follow-up instruction |

The rule: **lower tiers modify higher tiers, never override them**. A "style: minimalist" tag does not change the subject — it changes how the subject is rendered.

## Why it matters

If the chosen idea is tier-3 (a "modifier") instead of tier-1 (the "anchor"), every output regresses to a templated mean of the questionnaire space. Users feel the system isn't listening even when an LLM is technically in the loop. Promoting the chosen artifact to tier-1 — both in the payload and in the system prompt's explicit hierarchy — restores authorship.

## Mechanism

1. **Persist tier-1 and tier-2 in shared agent state** — a session-scoped store (Zustand, Redux, a server-side run record). Don't rely on re-deriving them from chat history; chat history is noisy and gets truncated.
2. **Carry them forward as structured args at every tool call** — not as chat-text pass-through. Make the function signature accept all four tiers explicitly.
3. **The system prompt declares the hierarchy verbatim.** List the four tiers, name what each is for, and instruct the LLM to anchor on tier-1.
4. **The fallback template mirrors the hierarchy.** When the LLM call fails and you drop to a deterministic template, the template still leads with the chosen idea's blurb. Otherwise the fallback contradicts the doctrine and the user feels the regression.

## Example — fixing a `craft_prompt` tool

A real agent had `craft_prompt(nomination, image_type, style, user_intent)` — tiers 3 and 4 only. The chosen idea (tier 1) and the original brief (tier 2) were chat-only and never reached the prompt composer. Outputs felt like questionnaire averages.

The fix: extend the run-state store to carry `originalBrief` and `chosenIdea`; widen the tool's args block to carry all four tiers as JSON; rewrite the prompt composer's system prompt to declare the hierarchy in order; rewrite the fallback template to lead with the chosen idea's blurb.

Outputs immediately stopped feeling templated. The change was almost entirely about plumbing — making the tool's surface match the doctrine the rest of the system already implied.

## Pairs with

- [typed-reference-composition](https://www.alexnix.com/en/articles/typed-reference-composition) — orthogonal: governs the **role** of each multi-input reference. This hierarchy governs **content priority** when multiple sources compete to fill one input.
- [template-dispatch-prompts](https://www.alexnix.com/en/articles/template-dispatch-prompts) — orthogonal again: dispatches *which* prompt to use; this concept governs *what content* flows into it.

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© Alex Nikulin (Александр Никулин). Original: https://www.alexnix.com/en/articles/four-tier-prompt-source-hierarchy. Quote only with credit to the author and a link to the original.