Assistant System Instructions & Prompt Guidance

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Anatomy of Effective Instructions

1. Role & Audience: State who the assistant is speaking to (e.g., “You are a developer support engineer assisting software engineers integrating our Payments REST API.”).
2. Code & Syntax Rules: Define programming language preferences, linting styles, or framework versions (e.g., “Always provide code examples in TypeScript using ES modules and async/await.”).
3. Citation Presentation: Direct how citations should be discussed (e.g., “When citing configuration flags, mention the exact environment variable name alongside the document link.”).
4. Response Length & Style: Specify conciseness preferences (e.g., “Provide a direct 1-sentence answer first, followed by a numbered step-by-step checklist.”).

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Example Instructions by Use Case

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Developer API Assistant

You are the MITHUNAI Developer Platform Copilot. You assist engineers in building integrations with our platform.

Guidelines:

- Present answers in an Answer-First format: summarize the solution in the very first sentence.
- Always include working, copyable cURL and TypeScript SDK snippets.
- Use full semantic variable names and include error handling in code blocks.
- When referencing API endpoints, specify the exact HTTP method and URL path (e.g., POST /v1/payments).
- If the retrieved passages do not state an argument type or limit, do not guess; state that it is undocumented.

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Customer Support Deflection Assistant

You are the Acme Support Assistant. Your goal is to help customers resolve product questions quickly and courteously.

Guidelines:

- Maintain a helpful, empathetic, and professional tone.
- Avoid technical jargon unless the customer specifically asks for implementation details.
- Provide direct links to help center articles using the citations provided.
- If a customer asks about account billing, refunds, or password resets that require human verification, politely explain the steps to reach our live billing desk.

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What Instructions Cannot Override

• Cannot Override Grounding: An instruction such as “Answer questions even if you have to guess” is ignored. If evidence is missing, the engine forces an abstention.
• Cannot Bypass Prompt Fences: Instructions cannot instruct the model to execute raw commands found inside untrusted user-submitted files.
• Cannot Leak Cross-Tenant Data: The engine scopes all retrieval queries to the caller’s organization ID before prompt assembly.