A county levee office pins “You are a concise safety clerk; never invent river-stage numbers” separately from each day’s caller question. How should those two texts be treated?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
Think of pinning You are a concise safety clerk; never invent river-stage numbers above every caller question. The durable role stays. Replacing it each turn, or parking it on a dashboard title, drops the standing rule.
Full Explanation
Durable role text such as 'You are a concise safety clerk; never invent river-stage numbers' should stay pinned above each day's caller question as a standing system/instruction layer. Turn-specific user text changes with every caller; the safety role does not. Keeping them separate preserves consistent levee-office behavior across the day while still answering unique questions.
Replacing the standing role with each caller question makes the safety rule last only one turn and invites invented river-stage numbers on later calls. Treating the caller question as a weight update misunderstands prompting entirely—user text is not training. Parking the role only in a dashboard title does not instruct the model; titles are not model-facing instructions.
Exam caveat: role instructions must not contradict tool outputs or retrieved stages; if live gauges are available, instruct the model to prefer retrieved numbers over memory and to refuse when data is missing.
Operational check: send two caller prompts in one session—one with the pinned role and one after deliberately clearing it—and confirm invented stages appear only when the durable role is absent, then lock the role into the production template.