prompt

Language reference / prompt

Meaning and placement

infer

The schema declares this field at the location below.

Property	Declaration
Requirement	Required in this object
Schema location	`/$defs/infer/properties/prompt`
$ref	`"#/$defs/promptText"`

In the same object: max_tokens · model · schema · system · temperature · thinking · vision Schema source (use the pointer above)

agent

The schema declares this field at the location below.

Property	Declaration
Requirement	Required in this object
Schema location	`/$defs/agent/properties/prompt`
$ref	`"#/$defs/promptText"`

In the same object: images · max_tokens_total · max_turns · model · schema · skills · system · temperature · tools Schema source (use the pointer above)

In a source template

Excerpt from templates/agent-loop.nika, source lines 50–59. This is a fragment, not a runnable workflow.

illustration

tasks:
  plan:
    infer:
      prompt: "Break '${{ inputs.goal }}' into at most 4 concrete steps."   # SLOT
      # SLOT: the spend ceiling for the planning call. Size it for the SEAT,
      # not for the answer: a reasoning model spends tokens thinking before
      # it emits the first brace, and a ceiling that cuts it off mid-thought
      # fails NIKA-INFER-002 ("no JSON value found · the reply was cut off at
      # the token limit"). Measured — 400 starves qwen3.5:4b on this prompt.
      # a reasoning model needs 16384 here, or a documented run.reasoning.effort: low

Templates containing this field

Template	Source
`templates/agent-loop.nika`	Line 53
`templates/bounded-batch.nika`	Line 54
`templates/chain.nika`	Line 72
`templates/classify-and-route.nika`	Line 80
`templates/corpus-qa.nika`	Line 100
`templates/docker-report.nika`	Line 75
`templates/document-to-fields.nika`	Line 61
`templates/evaluate-and-optimize.nika`	Line 42
`templates/fanout.nika`	Line 131
`templates/media-asset-pack.nika`	Line 58
`templates/parallel-review.nika`	Line 76
`templates/project-public-fields.nika`	Line 79
`templates/website-brief.nika`	Line 68

These are literal key occurrences in the source files, not an execution or conformance claim. How to instantiate a template.

Contract and implementation

This page projects the named specification revision. Check released engine status and the validation workflow before running a file. An optional field is not evidence that every engine supports every value. Canonical identity: language:word:prompt. Spec revision: 5c40ba456c53. How documentation stays connected.

YAML

Language fields

CLI & errors

Data catalogs

Workspace

Documentation system

Tool contracts

Meaning and placement

infer

agent

In a source template

Templates containing this field

Contract and implementation

​Meaning and placement

​infer

​agent

​In a source template

​Templates containing this field

​Contract and implementation

Meaning and placement

infer

agent

In a source template

Templates containing this field

Contract and implementation