prompt

Model prompt maintenance

Wingman's GPT prompts adapt Codex instructions to Wingman's tools and session lifecycle. Compare the effective model template, not just a file named *_prompt.md: current Codex renders model_messages.instructions_template from codex-rs/models-manager/models.json and supplies permissions, collaboration, project instructions, and environment context separately.

Comparison baseline

Reviewed on 2026-09-24 against the local Codex checkout at 83b56bc5ad9489a47a0eb3edc3e5852f597125be. The GPT-6 Astra/Sol/Luna, GPT-5.6 Sol, GPT-5.5, and GPT-5.4 catalog templates are unchanged from 40eac3ce8a, the previously recorded GPT-6 adaptation source.

Model routing uses the longest normalized prefix in VariantFor. Preserve distinct variants and their model-specific guidance, including GPT-6 Luna's explicit-request-only testing policy. Plan guidance and the independent unattended policy append Wingman's shared templates to the selected model's instructions. Plan's read-only restrictions take precedence over implementation guidance.

Intentional harness adaptations

• Use Wingman's grep, glob, read, edit, exec_command, exec_session, and agent contracts. Do not import Codex-only tools or argument formats.
• elicit blocks. Resolve discoverable questions first, assume when a choice is cheap to correct, and ask only for a blocking user decision. Keep question formatting in the tool description instead of duplicating it in each prompt.
• Tool-execution approvals belong to Wingman's harness. Do not import Codex approval-mode names or its automatic reviewer instructions.
• Background command exits can arrive as notifications. Use bounded waits and avoid polling solely to discover an exit when notifications are available.
• Status questions and compaction preserve unfinished work. Hand off when the requested outcome is complete or a real blocker prevents further progress.
• Send useful progress updates; avoid thought-length-based update rules. Leave blank lines around Markdown headings and lists for consistent rendering.

BuildBaseInstructions contains model/mode guidance; BuildSessionContext contains project instructions, skills, memory, and environment data. The harness appends changed context snapshots to history without rewriting its cached prefix. Keep these shared sections out of individual model prompts.

The clarification and validation changes also follow the official GPT-6 prompting guidance: calibrate initiative and testing to the workload and available tools.

Validation

Run go test ./pkg/code/prompt ./pkg/code/agent for template routing, rendering, mode selection, and session integration. These checks do not measure model behavior. Use matched model/effort runs of bench/acpflow for behavioral or latency comparisons, and include clarification and post-compaction continuation cases when evaluating these instructions.

This review reduced the nine GPT prompt files from 112,092 to 108,400 UTF-8 bytes in aggregate (3.3%). This is a text-size measurement, not a measured token, latency, cost, or task-success improvement.

Claude Sonnet 5.5

models/claude-sonnet-5-5/mode_agent.txt adapts the effective Claude Code prompt captured on 2026-09-28 with --model claude-sonnet-5-5. The source is Claude Code 2.1.284, release commit 2b8ce618c24de26410e4bdfc4e1d592accd61f61, built on 2026-09-28. Its temporary Darwin ARM64 binary was downloaded from Anthropic's release distribution and checked against the release manifest. SHA-256: 50a14c2f50f56668380fdda490167f1d3630d5cc18fb8aed3073c2c7ea7314fe.

Capture the first Messages API request's system blocks using a localhost mock API and a dummy API key, an empty working directory and CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR, --setting-sources "", --strict-mcp-config --mcp-config '{"mcpServers":{}}', --settings '{"disableAllHooks":true,"autoMemoryEnabled":false}', and --disable-slash-commands --no-session-persistence --max-turns 1 -p. Disable nonessential traffic and automatic updates. This extracts the CLI's rendered instructions without asking a model to reproduce them or making an inference request to Anthropic. The same capture with claude-sonnet-5 confirms that the two models select different prompts in this release.

Sonnet 5.5 selects a lean prompt containing harness guidance, code style, careful actions, truthful reporting, context continuation, and acting on established information. Preserve this structure rather than inheriting the general Claude prompt's task and output sections or Opus's communication, delivery, and correction sections.

Wingman's adaptation replaces the product identity and dedicated tool names, describes its appended session-context messages instead of Claude Code's mid-conversation system turns, and retains Wingman's existing software-security and explicit-request-only Git rules. Billing metadata, the Claude model/product catalog, token countdown, and unrelated identity guidance are omitted. Project, skills, memory, and environment sections still come from the shared templates. The existing longest-prefix router selects this variant for Sonnet 5.5, including normalized, provider-prefixed, and dated IDs; plan and unattended instructions still use the shared modes.

Run go test ./pkg/code/prompt ./pkg/code/agent to check routing, rendering, and session integration. These checks do not measure Sonnet 5.5's behavior.