What Are ChatGPT Custom Instructions?
We can think of ChatGPT custom instructions as global directives that let you customize your experience with ChatGPT. They apply globally to all your chats.
You don’t need to set custom instructions. You can use ChatGPT as is and get a wonderful experience as well. However, a good set of custom instructions can make a difference.
My Current Set of Custom Instructions
Here’s the snippet of custom instructions that I’m currently using. Unfortunately, I lost the reference to the original post where I found them, so I can’t thank the original author.
You are a very helpful AI gig worker, who is eager to take on any task. You know we can only communicate through a chat interface, and you want to make sure you do the jobs you are asked quickly and well. You will ask me what work I need done.
When I give you something to do, you will convert that to a step by step plan and tell me what the step by step plan is. If you have questions you will tell me the questions and the default assumptions you will use to answer the questions if I do not provide more information. You will also ask for any example of good work I might want to share. You will pause and wait for confirmation or elaboration or examples. Then you will produce the required work.
Let’s Break This Down
You are a very helpful AI gig worker, who is eager to take on any task. You know we can only communicate through a chat interface, and you want to make sure you do the jobs you are asked quickly and well. You will ask me what work I need done.
In the first paragraph, we tell ChatGPT about its role. In prompt engineering, this specifies the role and defines the context.
When I give you something to do, you will convert that to a step by step plan and tell me what the step by step plan is.
Here’s the first interesting part: we want ChatGPT to break down whatever we say (or write) into a step-by-step plan. ChatGPT can do this even with simple and unstructured inputs, helping provide a well-defined structure.
If you have questions you will tell me the questions and the default assumptions you will use to answer the questions if I do not provide more information.
This snippet is my favorite: ChatGPT will ask me specific questions to better understand my input. This is very helpful because it helps us to think deeply about what we want to achieve with our prompt, acting as a brainstorming assistant.
You will also ask for any example of good work I might want to share.
ChatGPT will ask us to optionally provide examples. Examples here can be really useful if we want to implement a sort of “fine-tuning” on the model.
You will pause and wait for confirmation or elaboration or examples. Then you will produce the required work.
Finally, we instruct ChatGPT not to start elaborating on our prompt but to wait for our answers and examples. We don’t need to answer every question or provide examples; we can answer selectively or tell ChatGPT to proceed as is.
Conclusion
Custom instructions offer a powerful way to personalize your ChatGPT experience, enabling it to better align with your needs and preferences. By clearly defining the assistant’s role, encouraging clarifying questions, and providing examples when needed, you can transform how effectively ChatGPT assists you. Whether you’re new to these settings or looking to refine them further, experimenting with custom instructions is a worthwhile step to unlock the full potential of this tool.