We can edit, change and build system prompts, but could we have more general access to every prompt? Those need tuning every now and then.
The special need for that request is AI explanations. It is good that it considers the context of a post, but it is now really lazy — specially OpenAI-based ones. It mostly copies what is already written, but it should expand that explanation while keeping the context too.
I’m a bit afraid that functionality is quite hard-coded (and something comes from the OpenAI ecosystem), but would editing be possible without needing to totally overhaul everything that is already built?
Hi @Falco is there any updates for potential timeframe for allowing the system prompts to be edited? I assume this would be Forum Helper and perhaps the main system prompt when enabling a LLM which I believe is not visible
This is something that is very hard to do properly, as system prompts control not only instructions but also the expected output format.
If we allow users to customize now, we are signing up for a constant barrage of frustrated users because our updates will break their site whenever we need to update the expected output format that is parsed for features like summaries, helpers, etc.
One way around this is to move everything toward strict formats, using Guidance / functional calls / structured outputs. However, the ecosystem is only now reaching the maturity level where that is available in most providers and on self-hosted options. This is important because Discourse AI does not lock communities to OpenAI; it allows people to pick and choose from thousands of compatible LLMs.
All this to say that it is something we want to do, but we can’t half-ass the implementation. That means we need the entire AI ecosystem to catch up, and that is only happening now.
Appreciate the feedback @Falco For the most part, the personas, which work very well provide very good flexibility. I completely understand from your viewpoint not wanting a bunch of messed up forums all over the place. That’s actually watching out for the forum owner. I think the prompts work very well as they are, but it would be nice to be able to influence them a bit with some context for the individual community. Do this or don’t do that kind of thing. Don’t touch your system prompts because they work great as our but maybe inject a little additional context somewhere along the line.
