Setting up your prompt set: a category-by-category playbook

The prompt set is upstream of every other Lantern surface. If the Query agent is tracking the wrong prompts, every downstream metric — Visibility, Favorability, the Industry Changes diff — optimises for the wrong shelf. This piece is a category-by-category playbook for picking the prompts to track.

The four patterns

• Buyer-intent — the queries actual shoppers run. "Best subscription coffee 2026", "vitamin C serum for sensitive skin". Should be the majority of the tracked set (≥ 60%).
• Branded — your brand and direct variations. "Is Wildgrain Roasters good", "Wildgrain reviews". 10–20% of the set.
• Category — definitional and educational. "What is direct-trade coffee". 10–20% of the set.
• Comparison — "X vs Y" prompts where you appear or where a competitor does. 10–15% of the set.

Coffee

prompts# Buyer-intent (sample of 8 of 30)
best subscription coffee 2026
best pour-over coffee beans
best Ethiopian Yirgacheffe single-origin
how to brew pour-over at home
best direct-trade coffee subscription
specialty coffee subscription with origin information
gift subscription for a coffee enthusiast
best decaf subscription coffee

# Branded (all 5)
is wildgrain.co good
Wildgrain Roasters reviews
Wildgrain Ethiopia Yirgacheffe tasting notes
Wildgrain subscription cancel policy
Wildgrain vs grocery-store coffee

# Category / definitional (all 5)
what is direct-trade coffee
what is washed-process coffee
how does coffee subscription work
what is single-origin coffee
how long does roasted coffee stay fresh

# Comparison (all 5)
Wildgrain vs Atlas Coffee Club
Wildgrain vs Trade Coffee
Atlas Coffee Club vs Trade Coffee
best subscription coffee for pour-over
specialty coffee subscriptions compared

Beauty and personal care

Beauty's prompt set should bias slightly more toward branded and comparison than coffee — the descriptor cloud carries more weight in this category. Nova Skincare's set is 40 prompts: 22 buyer-intent, 6 branded, 6 category, 6 comparison.

Pruning the underperformers

• A prompt that has been at 0% Visibility for 60 consecutive days, with no comparison or Citations-surface signal, is dead weight. Prune it.
• A prompt where Visibility has stayed perfectly flat for 90 days is probably mis-shaped.
• A new prompt added more than once per month signals the prompt set is not stable yet.