# Prompt Has Too Many Valid Interpretations

## Ontology Metadata

Code: ISS-0071
Version: ISS-0071@0.1.0
Ontology release: 0.1.0
Updated: 2026-05-10T00:00:00Z
Canonical URL: /workbench/issues/prompt-has-too-many-valid-interpretations/

## Summary

The prompt allows too many reasonable interpretations, causing the AI to choose among valid paths without enough guidance.

## Category

- CAT-0120 — Coverage & Guidance
  - URL: /workbench/categories/coverage-and-guidance/
  - Summary: Problems where prompts, rubrics, diagnostics, fallback rules, examples, requirements, or relationship maps are incomplete, underspecified, or missing needed guidance.

## Primary Pattern

- PAT-0170 — Constraints Underspecified
  - URL: /workbench/patterns/constraints-underspecified/
  - Summary: A structural condition where declared constraints are insufficient to eliminate ambiguity or multiple admissible states.

## Declared Patterns

- PAT-0170 — Constraints Underspecified
  - URL: /workbench/patterns/constraints-underspecified/
  - Summary: A structural condition where declared constraints are insufficient to eliminate ambiguity or multiple admissible states.
- PAT-0290 — Divergent Outputs
  - URL: /workbench/patterns/divergent-outputs/
  - Summary: A structural condition where parallel evaluations under comparable scope and shared authority produce non-equivalent outputs.
- PAT-0270 — Density Spike
  - URL: /workbench/patterns/density-spike/
  - Summary: A structural condition where nodes, edges, dependencies, decisions, or effects concentrate sharply within a localized region beyond declared thresholds.

## Derived Primary Lenses

- LEN-0140 — Compression Lens
  - URL: /workbench/lenses/compression-lens/
  - Summary: Reduces structural graphs into stable minimal representations for comparison, redundancy detection, and diffing.
- LEN-0160 — Constraint Sufficiency Lens
  - URL: /workbench/lenses/constraint-sufficiency-lens/
  - Summary: Evaluates whether declared constraints are sufficient to eliminate structural degrees of freedom.
- LEN-0170 — Convergence Lens
  - URL: /workbench/lenses/convergence-lens/
  - Summary: Compares parallel structural systems to determine whether they align under shared authority.
- LEN-0290 — Variance / Entropy Lens
  - URL: /workbench/lenses/variance-entropy-lens/
  - Summary: Measures structural variability across repeated or comparable evaluations and identifies divergence beyond expected bounds.

## Derived Secondary Lenses

- LEN-0180 — Determinism Lens
  - URL: /workbench/lenses/determinism-lens/
  - Summary: Evaluates whether identical structural inputs produce equivalent structural outputs across repeated executions.
- LEN-0190 — Escalation Gradient Lens
  - URL: /workbench/lenses/escalation-gradient-lens/
  - Summary: Measures structural growth or intensification across sequential executions, states, or transitions.

## Search Intents

- prompt has too many valid interpretations
- AI prompt is ambiguous
- prompt allows too many meanings
- same prompt can mean different things
- AI chose wrong interpretation
- prompt needs clearer criteria