> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.echod.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Prompts

> Write the questions Echod sends to AI platforms, classify them by intent, and keep your list within your plan.

A prompt is one question, written the way a buyer would ask it. On every crawl, Echod sends each active prompt to every enabled AI platform in every enabled region. Your prompts decide what Echod measures, so they are the most important part of your setup.

## Write prompts that produce useful data

**Ask like a buyer, not like a marketer.** Buyers rarely type your tagline. They describe a problem or a situation:

| Weaker | Stronger |
| - | - |
| best CRM | What is the best CRM for a 10-person consulting firm? |
| Acme vs Globex | Is Acme or Globex better for managing contractor invoices? |
| project management | Which project management tools work well for remote design teams? |

More tips:

* **Mix branded and unbranded prompts.** Prompts that name your brand show how AI platforms describe you. Prompts that do not name any brand show whether you are recommended at all, and they are where most growth comes from.
* **Cover the whole journey.** Include questions buyers ask while learning, comparing and deciding. Comparison and recommendation prompts produce the most meaningful [positions](https://docs.echod.ai/metrics/average-position.md).
* **Do not chase exact wording.** Small rephrasings of the same question tend to produce similar answers. Spend your allowance on different questions, not variations of one.
* **Keep prompts short.** A prompt can be up to 500 characters, but real buyer questions are usually one or two sentences.

## Add a prompt

1. Go to **Prompts** and click **Add Prompt**.
2. Choose the **Topic** it belongs to.
3. Write the **Prompt text**, or click **AI Suggest** for ideas based on the topic and your brand profile.
4. Pick a **Macro intent** and a **Specific intent** (see below).
5. Optionally add **Tags**, for example `non-branded` or `priority`.
6. Save. The prompt is included from the next crawl.

You can also add prompts while creating a topic, or many at once with a [CSV import](https://docs.echod.ai/setup/import-topics-and-prompts.md).

![Add prompt dialog with topic, prompt text, intent and tags fields](https://mintcdn.com/sherpas-design/qmEl5MUhXLHMeD6J/images/setup/add-prompt-dialog.png?fit=max\&auto=format\&n=qmEl5MUhXLHMeD6J\&q=85\&s=c7a73d5a26f936af3cf1a0c5ff2dcb0b)

## Intent

Every prompt carries two intent labels. They help you filter the prompts list and compare how you do on different kinds of questions.

**Macro intent** is the broad goal behind the question:

| Macro intent | The buyer wants to... |
| - | - |
| **Informational** | Learn or understand something |
| **Navigational** | Find a specific brand, site or page |
| **Commercial** | Research and compare options before buying |
| **Transactional** | Buy, sign up or get a price now |
| **Local** | Find something nearby |

**Specific intent** narrows it down: **Comparison**, **Alternative**, **Review**, **Recommendation**, **Pricing**, **Purchase**, **HowTo**, **Troubleshooting**, **Guide** or **Local**.

## Manage prompts

The **Prompts** page lists every prompt in the project, with tabs for **All**, **Active** and **Archived**. Search by text or filter by topic and intent.

| Action | What happens |
| - | - |
| **Edit** | Change the text, topic, intent or tags. |
| **Archive** | Stops crawling the prompt and frees its slot in your plan. Its history is kept. |
| **Activate** | Starts crawling an archived prompt again. |
| **Delete** | Removes the prompt and its history. This cannot be undone. |

To act on many prompts at once, tick their checkboxes and choose a bulk action. **Select all** applies to every prompt that matches your current filters, not just the visible page.

> [!NOTE]
>
> Editing a prompt's text changes the question from the next crawl onward. If the meaning changes substantially, consider archiving the old prompt and adding a new one, so the history of each question stays clean.

## Prompts and your plan

Your plan includes a number of tracked prompts, shared across all projects in your organization. A tracked prompt is an active prompt in an active topic. Archived prompts and prompts in paused topics do not count.

If you have more tracked prompts than your plan allows, for example after a downgrade, the newest prompts beyond the allowance stop being crawled and show an **Over plan limit** badge. They start again as soon as you archive other prompts or upgrade. See [Plan limits and coverage](https://docs.echod.ai/account/plan-limits.md).


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