XML

Think of XML tags like <info>some information</info> as a sort of heading system you might put on a document to indicate different sections e.g.:

Section 1
Section 1.1
Section 1.2
Section 2
Section 2.1

XML tags are mainly different from how we would structure document headings in that they have to have both an opening tag (<open>) and a closing tag that contains the same name as the opening tag, but preceeded by a / (</open>). This is an old format for computers, not for humans, so it has those tags to help the machine know where it is in a document with several, potentially nested tags.

By nested tags, I mean this:
<outertag>
<innertag>
words words words
</innertag>
</outertag>

In general, the AI respects XML tags like these and finds them very easy to understand and refer back to when it's working, especially when they appear with the wealth of information @prettystupid writes into the instructions about how the AI should use them. For us humans, they're a little harder to read, but the AI recognizes it as a widely used, standardized format across almost every document on the internet. That means we can take advantage of the AI's understanding to keep it focused and on task. This lets us label specific subsets of information about our worlds like this:

<levelOneQuests>
Gather herbs
Kill 10 wolves
Find lost sheep
</levelOneQuests>

or tell it how to respond to certain situations, like so:

When the player uses holy water on a zombie, apply <holyWaterZombieFx> to the zombie.

<holyWaterZombieFx>
The zombie is stunned for 1 minute.
The zombie takes 10 damage every 10 seconds for 3 minutes.
<holyWaterZombieDesc>
Zombie skin boils and melts away where holy water touches it.
</holyWaterZombieDesc>
</holyWaterZombieFx>