Question 21
Domain 3Your customer support agent is resolving billing disputes 80% of the time on first contact, but 6% of transactions are processed without the mandatory identity verification step. You have a clear system prompt instruction: "Always verify customer identity before processing any transaction." What is the most appropriate fix?
Correct answer: C
Explanation
A programmatic prerequisite gate enforces the instruction “Always verify customer identity before processing any transaction” by making verification a required step before payment or refund actions. This is the right fix because prompt instructions alone do not reliably prevent tool use; blocking `process_refund` and `process_payment` until `get_customer` returns a verified customer ID removes the unsafe path.
Why each option is right or wrong
A. Strengthen the system prompt instruction with more explicit language and examples
Stronger wording may improve compliance, but prompts alone cannot guarantee required tool-order enforcement.
B. Add few-shot examples demonstrating correct identity-first sequences
Few-shot examples teach patterns, but they do not deterministically block unsafe transaction calls.
C. Implement a programmatic prerequisite gate: block `process_refund` and `process_payment` tool calls until `get_customer` has returned a verified customer ID in the current session
The control failure is in the 6% of cases where a transaction tool is invoked before identity verification, so the remedy must be enforced in the tool layer rather than left to prompt compliance. A prerequisite gate that blocks `process_refund` and `process_payment` until `get_customer` has produced a verified customer ID in the current session directly eliminates the noncompliant execution path and makes the verification step mandatory before any money-moving action.
D. Add a classifier that detects when Claude skips verification and triggers a retry
Retry-after-detection is reactive; the unsafe action may already have been attempted or executed.