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 all current GPT catalog variants on 2026-09-30 against Codex commit 92bc601ad60542c92bf0bb1e7a2eb70b84ac49d2 using its pinned model catalog. All base instruction templates match the previous 2026-09-29 baseline at b1e72963c3b71a9265a551e54beff078384efed9, including GPT-6.1 Sol. The embedded external catalog now preserves the full new upstream entries, including updated descriptions, priorities, and auto-review metadata. Historical GPT-5.4 remains available with its retained entry. GPT prompt text required no changes.

The prior September 29 review introduced GPT-6.1 Sol and compared GPT-6, GPT-5.6, GPT-5.5, and historical GPT-5.1/GPT-5.2 against 83b56bc5ad9489a47a0eb3edc3e5852f597125be.

The review adopts GPT-6's structured multiline command-body guidance, restores the GPT-5.6 progress-update cadence, and restores concise GPT-5.5/GPT-5.4 collaboration guidance omitted from the earlier adaptations. GPT-6.1 Sol keeps its added guidance on direct wording, avoiding unnecessary apologies, and acknowledging meaningful mistakes. GPT-5.1, GPT-5.2, and GPT-5.4 Mini retain their existing adaptations; there is no revised upstream source to adopt.

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.

GPT-6.1 Sol uses Codex's low effort default and low verbosity. Its native effort choices are low, medium, high, xhigh, and max, as supported by the OpenAI API model documentation. Codex's ultra orchestration setting is not a native API reasoning effort. The full upstream GPT-6.1 Sol entry is copied into the embedded external Codex catalog; existing entries, including GPT-5.4, are retained.

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.
• Keep personality guidance focused on collaboration and judgment. Omit product identity, claims about an inner life, and unrelated stylistic bans.
• Codex's optional persistent-mode prompt depends on its async messaging and scheduling tools. Keep Wingman's session and unattended-mode contracts.

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.

For model catalog changes, also run go test ./pkg/model ./pkg/external/codex ./pkg/acp/codex ./pkg/agent to cover discovery, backend IDs, Codex metadata, and request construction. Prompt text changes still require matched behavioral evaluations before claiming task-success or latency improvements.

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.

Claude Code review on September 30

Captured the rendered requests for Claude Sonnet 5/5.5, Opus 4.8/5/5.5, Fable 5/5.1, and Mythos 5/5.1 with Claude Code 2.1.285. The installed Darwin ARM64 binary matches the official release manifest: commit afb212976052ab038df25d5e871f6c049e094d3b, built September 29, SHA-256 51f09bd1e021d9fa8a1864c179799bd37cb39962a937935c5cf6823398e86db4. The capture uses the isolation described above, default CLI tools, a local mock API, and a dummy credential. It makes no model inference requests. The source captures and a dated report are retained in ../wingman-ops/runs/2026-09-30.

Translate Claude's system-turn/reminder wording to Wingman's appended session context, without granting ordinary tool results instruction authority. Keep software-security guidance and explicit-request-only Git rules. Omit billing, product catalogs, token countdowns, and unrelated identity guidance. The new 5.1 variants do not assume every session is unattended; the shared unattended and plan modes remain the policy owners. Longest-prefix routing distinguishes 5.1 from 5, including provider-prefixed, normalized, dated, and tagged IDs.

Validate routing, rendering, and mode composition with the existing focused Go suites. These checks do not establish a behavioral or latency improvement; matched live model evaluations were not part of this refresh.