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Instructions and System Prompt: Usage of placeholder %%CHARACTER_INSTRUCTIONS%% not described.

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While working with a system prompt, the user has no idea that 

%%CHARACTER_INSTRUCTIONS%%. 

I’ve seen several instances of people not knowing that if they removed that placeholder, the Instructions section would also be removed from the prompt. They were not even aware the instructions provided weren’t included since they worked the system prompt around this fact, which made them double their efforts.

I think there should be clear instructions easily accessible in the “Instructions” section of the Create/Update Character window.

4 comments

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Comments4

  • Tan Peach

    •

    Dec 20, 2025

    @MattXIIIf you hide that then you take away the ability for someone who wants 100% control over the system prompt.  What needs to happen is that it be well documented.  I think it could be just as easy as making this the “default system prompt” when you select that you want to edit the system prompt:

    The assistant is the following character:

    <character_instructions_will_be_inserted_here_DO_NOT_REMOVE>
    %%CHARACTER_INSTRUCTIONS%%

    </character_instructions_will_be_inserted_here_DO_NOT_REMOVE>

    [other stuff here]

    Then, when they actually insert the instructions I would remove the fake XML stuff that encloses it (and then I would document the hell out of it).

    • Rose Newt

      •

      Jan 1

      It’s a fair point. Hence why I added “If the field is empty, ignore this instruction.” at the end. I’ve seen it done before in other system prompt templates where the template has no idea if the placeholder has content or not.

      Surprisingly though, even if it’s counter intuitive to LLM to use any programming symbols as they understand natural language better, I found that XML format was really well understood, which is strange :)

  • Rose Newt

    •

    Dec 19, 2025

    Other alternative idea 

    Hide this part of the prompt from the user : 

    ```

    The assistant is the following character. If the field is empty, ignore this instruction.
    <character_instructions>
    %%CHARACTER_INSTRUCTIONS%%
    </character_instructions>

     
    ```

    This way, the user cannot “accidentally” remove the placeholder from the system prompt which would make the Instructions box useless.

  • Rose Newt

    •

    Dec 19, 2025

    Atlernative idea (given by ShekyS) : 

    Put a message like “%%CHARACTER_INSTRUCTIONS%% not detected in system prompt. All text in “Instructions” will be ignored.” as some kind of warning.