Skip to content

Move single-tool rules from the system prompt into tool descriptions #2411

Open

Description

@sentry-junior

Follow-up to #2364 and #2371.

policies/system-prompt.md says block 5 (<tool-policy>, <skill-policy>, <planning>) holds only rules that apply to more than one tool. A rule about one tool goes in that tool's description (agent-steering.md, tool-design.md). #2371 wrote this rule down, but it did not move the existing single-tool rules.

Candidates in packages/junior/src/chat/system-prompt-rules.ts (check each one; some may apply to more than one tool):

  • The subscription and watchEvents rule (subscription, suggestedEvents, temporary watch expiry).
  • The loadSkill rules in <skill-policy>.
  • The updatePlan rule in <planning>.
  • The Slack send-tool limit in <slack-actions> (no new top-level channel posts).
  • The tool card rule ("Cards returned by tools attach to your next visible reply").
  • The handoff / spawnAgent decision line.

Done when:

  • Each rule that is about one tool lives in that tool's description or promptGuidelines, and only there.
  • The system prompt keeps only rules that apply across tools.
  • The behavioral and integration evals show no new failures, compared against a run of main.

Note: moving text out of the static system prompt changes the cached prefix. Tool descriptions must stay the same from turn to turn, as the caching rules in the policy require.

via David Cramer.

--

View Session [Sentry]

Activity

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    No labels
    No labels

    Projects

    No projects

      Milestone

      No milestone

      Relationships

      None yet

      Development

      No branches or pull requests

      Issue actions