AI Glossary

System Prompt

Understanding AI Terminology

Special instructions that set an AI's behavior, role, or personality for a conversation.

What It Means

A system prompt is a special type of instruction given to an AI model that defines its behavior, role, constraints, or personality throughout a conversation. Unlike regular user messages, system prompts are typically hidden from the user and processed with higher priority by the model. They're used to customize AI assistants for specific applications, enforce guidelines, or set consistent behavior.

Examples

  • 'You are a helpful customer support agent for ACME Corp.'
  • 'Always respond in JSON format.'
  • 'Never provide medical or legal advice.'

How This Applies to ARKA-AI

ARKA-AI's tools use carefully crafted system prompts optimized for each task type, though you can customize behavior in manual mode.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about System Prompt

By default, system prompts are not visible to users, but they can sometimes be revealed through clever prompting. Treat system prompts as guidelines, not secrets.
Keep system prompts concise but complete. Long, repetitive prompts waste tokens without improving results. Focus on essential instructions and constraints.

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