Use grading criteria to improve subjective outputs like design
Define concrete grading criteria based on principles to improve subjective outputs like design quality.
Turn subjective judgments into concrete, gradable terms using a set of criteria.
For subjective tasks like design, establish specific grading criteria that encode principles and preferences. This provides the agent with concrete goals, moving beyond vague notions of 'good design' to measurable attributes.
Instead of asking 'Is this design beautiful?', use criteria like 'Does this follow our principles for good design?' or 'Is the layout original and visually appealing?'
Improve subjective outputs, such as design generation, by defining specific grading criteria based on underlying principles. This transforms vague quality assessments into concrete, measurable attributes that agents can effectively work towards.
It gives agents something concrete to grade against, moving beyond subjective taste to actionable principles. This allows for more consistent and reliable evaluation and iteration.
- Harness design for long-running application development ↗Anthropic Engineering · Anthropic Engineering · Mar 24, 2026 · paraphrased
First seen on Subvolts Mar 24, 2026. Updated Sep 11, 2026. Spotted a problem? Tell us.
- Harness design for long-running application developmentAnthropic · Anthropic Engineering · Mar 24, 2026
The Playbook: reusable how-tos, prompts, configs and tips pulled out of the news.
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Questions people ask
- Which AI tools does this work with?
- Any current model. It was seen with in the sources.
- Where did this come from?
- Anthropic Engineering (Anthropic Engineering). Subvolts collected, normalized and credited it; the link above opens the original.

