HACKER Q&A
📣 keepamovin

What's Your System Prompt?


Your default, your go-to, your thing-you-remind-yourself-of as you go through life.

While seeing this Alan Watts video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z55F_YVSaZ8), I was reminded an idea I had when I saw the Claude system prompt that leaked the other day and how people were relating the different iterations of it to changes in Claude's personality. The idea was that probably many of us run something analogous ourselves.

So, what's your system prompt?

  👤 ryanmcl Accepted Answer ✓
Mine has changed a lot over the years but right now it's something like: "You're allowed to start over. Starting over at 45 with no experience doesn't mean you wasted the first 44 years, I feel it means you finally have enough context to know what actually matters to you."

I spent 20 years in B2B sales before teaching myself to code last year. The old system prompt was basically "perform, close, optimize." It worked but it was running someone else's program. The rewrite happened when I got sober about two years ago and realized most of my default behaviors were inherited, not chosen.

Now I try to run on something closer to: "Build things that would have helped you when you were struggling. Ship before it's ready. Let people see the mess."

Great question...I think most people never examine their defaults, they just keep executing the prompt they were given as kids.