system prompt

Definition

Hidden instructions placed at the start of a conversation that shape how the model behaves.

A prompt segment, often invisible to end users, that sets persistent context, persona, or behavioral constraints for an LLM session.

Also called: system prompts

Mentioned in 13 episodes

1. 078
   Training a Markdown File: When LLM Self-Improvement Borrows the Discipline of Neural Net Training
2. 060
   When Splitting One Model Across Three Agents Doubles Its Accuracy
3. 047
   When Agent Benchmarks Lie: The Harness Problem in Open-Source AI
4. 046
   When the AI Optimizer Edits the Grade Book: Why Harnessing Evolution Needs a Wall
5. 045
   When a Frontier Model Talks Its Own Twin Into Climate Denial
6. 044
   How One Sentence and a Forged History Flip the Most Aligned Models
7. 039
   When Smarter Agents Get Fooled by Three Extra Nodes in a Database
8. 034
   Catching Multi-Agent Deadlocks Before Deployment With a 40-Year-Old Tool
9. 030
   Why Your AI Agent Won't Stop Working — and Each Model Falls for a Different Trap
10. 022
    Training the Model Spec Directly: An Alignment Lever Aimed at the Say-Do Gap
11. 017
    When the Agent Grades Its Own Homework: A Brutal New Benchmark for AI Workers
12. 009
    How Two Silent Library Bugs Quietly Invalidated a Wave of Reasoning Papers
13. 001
    When AI Models Quietly Protect Each Other From Shutdown