guide Updated 2026-10-06

Work a Prompt

Resolve the checklist accurately — where it lives, and what each action does.

Where prompts live

Open an asset and switch to Suggestions → Checklists. The panel has two sections:

  • Proactive — near-miss prompts. A playbook is partially satisfied and the engine is asking about a missing required component. Empty state: "No near-miss prompts right now."
  • Reactive — the objectives carried by components linked to this asset (what objectives are).
Visual needed
Checklist panel on an asset
Screenshot showing 3–4 open prompts with resolve actions

Resolving a proactive prompt

A prompt is a question: does this capability apply here? Three honest answers, three different mechanics:

Yes — link it

Assign the missing component to the asset (the [linking flow](/workspace/map-an-asset)). The prompt disappears on its own — satisfied requirements don't linger — and the playbook fires immediately if nothing else is missing. No history entry is created for a prompt that resolved itself.

No — check the full surface first

A negative is a real result, but only after you have traced the whole flow: the parent, the child, and the interaction between them. Incomplete negatives silently suppress every playbook behind them. Record the answer as a **manual check** — the prompt moves to the asset's history and won't be suggested again unless you remove it there.

Use the probes when you are stuck

Prompts that ask about a component with [probes](/nexus-engine/probes) carry a probe-count badge. Open the prompt's context menu → **View probes** to see exactly how to check for it, without leaving the asset.

Working the reactive objectives

Objectives arrive with the components you link, so they are always relevant to what you mapped. Check them off as you verify them in the app — each check is recorded in the asset's history under Reactive Checks. This list is what the Playbook Coverage Rate measures.

Where the record goes

Open the asset's History panel:

  • Playbooks — outcome history for playbook runs.
  • Checklists — Proactive Checks (manual prompt resolutions) and Reactive Checks (objective check-offs).

Entries stay until you remove them. Removing an entry makes it eligible again — a prompt can ask once more, an objective can resurface. That is the escape hatch for mistakes, not the default: the record is meant to be trustworthy.

Never resolve a prompt from assumption. The checklist exists to capture evidence — treating it as a click-through form defeats the entire model, because everything downstream (suggestions, scores, chains) reasons from what it says.

What happens after you resolve

The engine re-evaluates the asset immediately: new suggestions appear, others disappear, the remaining checklist shrinks. Resolutions are revision-safe — update the record whenever you learn something new; the engine follows your data, not a stale decision.

What's next

When a suggestion looks right, go execute: run a playbook.

Probes

Reusable how-to-check notes that surface at the moment a prompt asks.

Overview

Requirements in, capabilities out — the recipes of your threat library.