Instructionssuch

Instructionssuch is a neologism used in discussions of natural language instruction systems to refer to a subclass of directives that couple an action with a constraint expressed by a such that clause. The term emphasizes that the instruction not only specifies what to do but also a postcondition the result should satisfy.

Etymology and scope. The word instructionssuch combines the base concept of instructions with the logical cue such that, signaling a requirement that the output must meet certain criteria. In practice, instructionssuch prompts present a task followed by a constraint clause introduced by such that, making the intended outcome more explicit than a plain imperative.

Definition and structure. A typical instructionssuch directive consists of an action or task phrase, followed by a clause such as such that, which states a condition or quality the result must meet. For example: "Summarize the article such that it preserves core meaning and excludes confidential data." The emphasis is on verifiability and constraint satisfaction, not only on accomplishing the task.

Origins and usage. Instructionssuch has appeared in niche discussions within prompt engineering and AI safety communities in the early 2020s. It is not a widely standardized term and is used variably to describe prompts that embed constraints alongside tasks rather than as a formal specification language.

Relation to related concepts. Instructionssuch is related to goal-driven prompts, constraint-based prompting, and elements of formal specification in software engineering. It intersects with instruction tuning and evaluation practices that assess whether outputs meet defined postconditions.

Limitations. Ambiguity in natural language can undermine the clarity of such that clauses. There is also a risk of over-constraining outputs or conflicting constraints, which can hinder task performance if not carefully designed. See also instruction tuning, prompt engineering, and formal methods.