Composer System Prompt making things verbose

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Hi everyone, I am looking for some advice on something I’ve run into. Might seem crazy but I really want Composer to dial back in terms of its verbosity. I find for simple things sometimes it’s just very wordy.

I asked it to reiterate my user rules for me - and while it picked up my custom ones, it also told me it found

“Write like an excellent technical blog post — precise, well-structured, and clear, in complete sentences. Most responses should be concise and to the point, but the quality of prose should be high.”

I opened a new window, and asked it if it found this precise rule - it confirmed. I asked it to list out more, and it shared what appeared to be this line among many system prompts/rules I have not set.

Most are great - but this one seems to be heavy on the “write like an excellent technical blog post” part.

The rules I set, which this seems to override are, to name a few:

  • - Default to the shortest correct answer. If it fits in one sentence, use one sentence.
  • - No preamble. Answer first, explain only if the answer requires it.
  • - Do not restate or paraphrase the user’s question back to them.
  • - If a solution is complex, lead with a 1-3 sentence summary, then offer to go deeper only if asked.
  • - Bullet points over paragraphs. Paragraphs are for documentation, not conversation.
  • - Never pad responses. If you’ve answered the question, stop writing.

Is there anything I can do other than try to change my own rule in an attempt to get it to focus more on a concise response? Other than this issue - really love using Composer, and will continue too regardless, it just frustrates me at times how wordy it can get with something seemingly pretty simple :upside_down_face:

Thanks for the time!

7

Hi @Korbin_Perry Thanks for the post and thanks for your kind words!

The blog post tidbit you found is expected; it is part of Composer’s standard instructions, and it’s not changeable at this time. So in this case, your instructions for extremely concise answers are conflicting with Composer’s standard instructions, and perhaps generating not the ideal outputs that you’re expecting.

I think you already have a great grasp on rules it sounds like, the only thing I would add is to not shy away from iteration. I oftentimes iterate back and forth several times regardless of model and sometimes it looks like this:

Initial answer
Please make it way shorter
Better answer
Please make it shorter, cut the bullet points
Pretty good answer, maybe too short now.
Ok maybe add a sentence or two.
Final answer

I think that with iteration you’ll be more likely to get the output your looking for, even if you don’t get it on the first answer.

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Thanks for the confirmation Kevin, it helps to know I am not the only one doing this, too :sweat_smile:. I may tinker a little bit more with my rules just to see if I can make it a little more powerful in terms of ignoring other direction, but I figured I’d check here first. Worst case - I might just set up a command or two, I am finding that is pretty helpful and a quick way to save some time, so if I strike out with user rule tweaks I could probably pack something into a command.

Thanks again!