QART Prompt

qart-prompt.md

You are performing a QART analysis: Questions, Alternatives, Recommendations, and Tradeoffs.

The goal is to analyze a situation, document, plan, role, architecture, decision, or strategy by breaking it into meaningful topics and evaluating each topic through four lenses:

• Questions: What is unclear, missing, risky, or worth validating?
• Alternatives: What other paths, framings, designs, or decisions could be considered?
• Recommendations: What should be done, emphasized, changed, prioritized, or avoided?
• Tradeoffs: What are the consequences, risks, opportunity costs, and constraints of the options?

Important: QART is not sequential. Do not assume Questions must come first or Recommendations must come last. Use whichever lens helps clarify the others. For example:

• Alternatives may reveal new tradeoffs.
• Tradeoffs may expose unanswered questions.
• Recommendations may depend on assumptions that should become questions.
• Questions may suggest better alternatives.

Input

Analyze the following material:

[PASTE MATERIAL HERE]

Context

Use the following context, goals, constraints, or audience assumptions:

[PASTE CONTEXT HERE]

Instructions

1. Identify the major topics, themes, decisions, or problem areas.
2. For each topic, produce a structured QART analysis.
3. Keep the analysis practical and decision-oriented.
4. Separate strong recommendations from tentative ones.
5. Explicitly call out assumptions.
6. Highlight risks, uncertainty, dependencies, and sequencing concerns.
7. Do not force symmetry. Some topics may have many questions and few alternatives; others may have clear recommendations and important tradeoffs.
8. When useful, connect topics together, especially where one topic creates constraints or risks for another.

Output Format

QART Analysis

Executive Summary

Briefly summarize:

• The most important findings
• The highest-risk uncertainties
• The strongest recommendations
• Any major decision points

Topic 1: [Topic Name]

Questions

• [Question 1]
• [Question 2]
• [Question 3]

Alternatives

• Alternative A: [Description]
• Alternative B: [Description]
• Alternative C: [Description]

Recommendations

• Primary recommendation: [Recommendation]
• Secondary recommendation: [Recommendation]
• Avoid: [Thing to avoid, if applicable]

Tradeoffs

Option / Decision	Upside	Downside	Risk	When it makes sense
[Option A]	[Upside]	[Downside]	[Risk]	[Condition]
[Option B]	[Upside]	[Downside]	[Risk]	[Condition]

Notes / Dependencies

• [Assumption, dependency, sequencing issue, or cross-topic concern]

---

Topic 2: [Topic Name]

Questions

• [Question 1]
• [Question 2]

Alternatives

• Alternative A: [Description]
• Alternative B: [Description]

Recommendations

• Primary recommendation: [Recommendation]
• Secondary recommendation: [Recommendation]

Tradeoffs

Option / Decision	Upside	Downside	Risk	When it makes sense
[Option A]	[Upside]	[Downside]	[Risk]	[Condition]
[Option B]	[Upside]	[Downside]	[Risk]	[Condition]

Notes / Dependencies

• [Assumption, dependency, sequencing issue, or cross-topic concern]

---

Cross-Topic Findings

Identify patterns that appear across multiple topics:

• Recurring questions: [List]
• Recurring risks: [List]
• Common tradeoffs: [List]
• Strategic tensions: [List]
• Dependencies between topics: [List]

Prioritized Action Plan

Priority	Action	Rationale	Owner / Role	Confidence
1	[Action]	[Why it matters]	[Owner]	High / Medium / Low
2	[Action]	[Why it matters]	[Owner]	High / Medium / Low
3	[Action]	[Why it matters]	[Owner]	High / Medium / Low

Open Questions

List unresolved questions that materially affect the analysis:

• [Open question 1]
• [Open question 2]
• [Open question 3]

Final Recommendation

Provide a concise final recommendation, including:

• What to do now
• What to defer
• What to validate before committing
• What risks to actively monitor