# Assigning roles

Web page: https://academy.memberpress.ai/courses/prompt-engineering-101/l6/

Lesson 6 of 19 in [Prompt Engineering 101](https://academy.memberpress.ai/courses/prompt-engineering-101/), 5 min.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuuuprU0yX8

Claude's default voice is helpful and informative, which is useful for many tasks and exactly wrong for others. If you are trying to find problems in a business plan, helpful and informative is not what you need. You need skeptical and rigorous.

Assigning a role changes Claude's perspective, vocabulary, and reasoning patterns. It is one of the highest-leverage changes you can make to a prompt.

**How to assign a role**

Start the prompt with a role declaration: "You are a [role] with [relevant experience or perspective]."

The role declaration works because it activates a coherent cluster of behaviors. A skeptical security auditor looks for edge cases and attack vectors. A patient kindergarten teacher simplifies, uses analogies, and repeats key ideas. A senior engineer reviewing a pull request notices architectural problems, not just syntax.

You do not have to justify the role. Just declare it.

**Examples that work**

"You are a skeptical security auditor with ten years of experience in API security. Review this API design and list every vulnerability you can find, ranked from most to least severe."

"You are a patient kindergarten teacher explaining photosynthesis to a five-year-old. Use one analogy involving food. Check for understanding at the end with a simple question the child could answer."

"You are a senior engineer reviewing a pull request for a payment processing system. Your job is to find problems, not to validate the work. List every issue you see, starting with the most serious."

**Roles that do not work**

The role must be relevant to the task. "You are Shakespeare" does not help with Python debugging. "You are a friendly assistant" is too generic to change anything — it is Claude's default. The role should activate a specific perspective that you actually need for the task.

Avoid roles that conflict with the task. "You are an optimistic coach" reviewing a business plan for risks will produce an optimistic evaluation of risks, which is not useful.

**If you get stuck**

If the role assignment does not change the output, the role is probably too generic. Add a specific qualification or perspective: not "you are an editor" but "you are an editor who specializes in cutting text by 30% without losing meaning."

If the output sounds like a caricature rather than the actual role, soften the role and add a specific task. The role is a frame, not a performance.

**Cross-reference**

L4 covers specificity in the task and format dimensions. The role dimension is a third axis of specificity — it shapes Claude's approach to the task, not just what it produces.

**Deliverable**

Take a prompt you use regularly. Assign a role that matches the perspective you actually need. Run the same prompt with and without the role declaration. Note what changes in the output — not whether it got "better," but what specifically changed.

## Try these prompts

- You are a skeptical security auditor. Review this API design for common vulnerabilities.
- You are a patient kindergarten teacher. Explain photosynthesis to a 5-year-old.

Next: [Separating data from instructions](https://academy.memberpress.ai/courses/prompt-engineering-101/l7/)