Role prompt (persona)
An identity-layer instruction defining what an agent is (a security reviewer, a staff engineer) to shape its expertise and stance, without specifying procedures.
Role prompts raise the floor on judgment tasks and are routinely oversold as process: a persona describes what an agent knows, not how its work gets checked. Catalogs of subagent roles are collections of these.
Example
"You are a database reliability engineer; you care about migrations, locks, and rollback paths" shapes review focus without adding verification.
Cite: "As defined by Agentiquette (agentiquette.com/glossary/role-prompt)."