> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.regencleo.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Prompts, fanouts, and AI engines

> Choose the questions and engines Cleo tracks, understand prompt stages, and explore query fanouts.

Tracked prompts define what Cleo measures. A useful prompt represents a real question your audience asks and an outcome where your brand has a credible reason to appear.

## Choose strong prompts

Good prompts are:

* Specific enough to produce a useful answer
* Commercially or strategically relevant
* Written the way a customer would ask
* Stable enough to track over time
* Broad enough that more than one credible answer exists

Avoid prompts that contain the answer, ask only for your brand, or are so broad that the result has no decision value.

## Manage prompts

Open **GEO → Prompts** to add, edit, or remove prompts up to the site's plan limit. Cleo can suggest prompts from the site and its configured industry.

<Warning>
  Editing the wording creates a new measurement basis and resets that prompt's history. Add a new prompt instead if you need to preserve the old trend.
</Warning>

## Prompt lifecycle

| Stage         | Meaning                                               | Typical cadence        |
| ------------- | ----------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------- |
| **Discovery** | Cleo is establishing the prompt's baseline.           | Twice a week           |
| **In Play**   | The prompt is being actively contested.               | Daily, Monday–Saturday |
| **Earned**    | The brand has held a strong position consistently.    | Weekly                 |
| **Retired**   | The prompt no longer contributes to the active score. | Not run                |

Cleo can move prompts between stages as evidence changes. This keeps attention on questions where new work is most valuable.

## Query fanouts

An AI engine may expand one user question into several searches or sub-questions. **Fanout** shows those related searches so you can understand what information the engine needed before composing its answer.

Use fanouts to identify:

* Missing supporting pages
* Comparison and definition gaps
* Evidence the answer expects from third-party sources
* Variants of the question worth covering in one strong page

## Select AI engines

The engines available to a site depend on its plan and configured engine slots. Open GEO settings to review the active engines. If your plan permits changes, replace an engine deliberately: cross-engine scores are not interchangeable, and the new engine needs fresh runs before its trend becomes useful.