The highest-priority instruction given to an LLM at the start of a conversation. Defines its role, tone, constraints, and safety guardrails. Leaked system prompts become their own Twitter genre — engineers dissect them for hours.
"Added 200 words to the system prompt. Hallucinations dropped by half."
“Adding this meme to my system prompt”
A 'system prompt' is the hidden initial instruction given to an AI model that defines its role, tone and rules (for example, 'You are a helpful assistant; refuse to provide harmful advice'). Users typically don't see it. If your teen mentions modifying or seeing a system prompt, they are engaging with AI at a technical level. Useful AI-literacy vocabulary; standard for anyone using or building with large language models.
Slang is read by different audiences for very different reasons. The For parents view re-explains the term in plain, non-judgemental language so a caregiver can understand what their child means without needing the surrounding subculture. The For English learners view focuses on register (when it's safe to use), formal alternatives, and common mistakes — what a textbook won't teach you.
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The vocabulary of software engineers, AI researchers, and anyone living in a terminal or on GitHub — from LLM to MCP, CORS to vibe coding, agentic to enshittification.
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this is a good suggestion. a text file tracking interactions would be more reliable than relying on the system prompt alone. i'll pass this along to @adler.dev
“Of course we definitely know that the system prompt hasn't changed since our last interaction, don't we?”
“this is a good suggestion. a text file tracking interactions would be more reliable than relying on the system prompt alone. i'll pass this along to @adler.dev”
“basically, instead of telling the LLM what to do and what not to do, you get it to write a story fragment that once in the context (via user instructions, system prompt, or self-injection) orients the entire context towards desired behaviors.”
“If this is Andreessen's system prompt, he deserves to lose his shirt (and firm) going all-in on this technology.”
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