Instructions
Standing context about who you are and how you want to be answered, applied automatically to every prompt.
What an Instruction is
An Instruction is context you would otherwise retype constantly: who you are, what you work on, and how you want to be spoken to. Select one and it is attached silently to every prompt until you change it.
Without one, you find yourself writing "I'm a backend engineer, be concise, don't explain basics" at the top of half your prompts. With one, you write it once.
Two halves
Who you are and what you do. Role, industry, seniority, the systems you work with, your audience. Up to 5,000 characters.
Answers the question "who am I talking to?"
The shape of the reply. Length, tone, formatting, what to leave out. Up to 2,000 characters.
Answers the question "how should I say it?"
Both are sent as one system message, with the How text prefixed by Response style:. Keeping them separate is what makes an Instruction reusable — you can rewrite how you want answers without touching who you are.
Creating one Paid plan
How to reach it. Action grid → Instructions → Add Instruction….
Client-facing email beats My instruction 2. You will be picking from this list several times a day.
Concrete beats abstract. "I maintain a Django monolith and a small React admin panel" is worth more than "I'm a developer".
State what you do not want as well as what you do. Models over-explain by default, and this is where you stop them.
Tags make the drawer searchable once you have a dozen.
Creating an Instruction does not activate it. Choose it from the book icon in the top bar.
Both What and How are required. An Instruction with either left blank will not save.
Active versus selected
Two different switches, easily confused:
- Active — the toggle in the drawer. An inactive Instruction is hidden from the selector. Use it to retire something without deleting it.
- Selected — chosen in the top bar. Only one at a time, and only a selected Instruction affects your prompts.
Worked examples
Backend engineer
What that buys you is easiest to see side by side. Below, the same question goes to the same model twice — once with nothing selected, once with the Instruction above. Nothing else changes: no Mind, no SmartPrompt, no extra words in the prompt.
Client-facing email
Contract review
Support agent
Getting more out of them
One per mode of work, not one per project
Three or four Instructions covering how you work — writing code, writing to clients, reviewing, thinking out loud — will serve you better than fifteen tied to individual projects. Project-specific knowledge belongs in a Mind, which is retrieved on demand rather than carried on every prompt.
Say what to omit
The highest-value lines in a How are usually negative. "No preamble." "Don't restate my question." "Don't hedge." Each one removes something you would otherwise skim past dozens of times a day.
Pin one to a prompt with a Magnet
If a SmartPrompt only makes sense under a particular Instruction, attach it as a Magnet. Triplo switches to it for that prompt and switches back afterwards — no manual toggling.
Instruction or SmartPrompt?
| Instruction | SmartPrompt | |
|---|---|---|
| Applies to | Every prompt, until changed | Only when you invoke it |
| Describes | You and your preferences | A specific task |
| Good for | "I'm a nurse; use clinical terms" | "Turn these notes into a handover" |
| How many active | One | As many as you like, in sequence |
Rule of thumb: if it is true of you regardless of the task, it is an Instruction. If it describes a task, it is a SmartPrompt.
Limits & gotchas
- Title 100 characters, What 5,000, How 2,000. Both text fields are mandatory.
- The Instruction is sent on every prompt, so it costs tokens on every prompt. A 5,000-character What is roughly 1,250 tokens each time.
- It applies to background hotkey prompts too. An Instruction that says "always ask a clarifying question first" will ruin a prompt whose output gets pasted straight into your document.
- A conflicting SmartPrompt is not overridden by the Instruction, nor the reverse. Both are text; the model decides. Keep them compatible.
- Instructions are shared to your other devices as read-only copies. Clone one to edit it locally. See Sharing across devices.
- Each Instruction is a Markdown file under
~/Documents/Triplo AI/Instructions/, editable directly — see File formats. Files written by older versions usingContextandResponse Styleheadings are still read correctly.