Messages

Learn in five minutes

• Hosted APIs usually separate system, user, and tool messages. Confirm the current API.
• The system message is not a secret from a determined user. Do not put a key there.
• Tool results should be marked as tool results.
• Order matters because the model reads the sequence.
• Record which role said each line in the trace.

A trace that flattens every role into one paragraph hides whether the tool or the model spoke. Keep the roles.

This section HTML

Visual

Diagram SVGDiagram PNGDiagram HTML

Three lines, three roles

1. Write a system line that sets the job.
2. Write a user line that asks one question.
3. Write a tool line that returns a number you computed outside the model.
4. The reply may quote the tool line and must not invent a second number.

This section HTML

Quiz

This section HTML

Ecosystem

Role

The label that says whether a line is an instruction, a person, or a tool.

Sisters: JSON schema, Rubrics, Regression tests.

The same job-shape-test card works for chat, voice, and a tool result.

The capstone reuses this card.

Config

• Write the goal in one sentence.
• Name the input and the allowed output.
• Save the trace next to the result.

Troubleshooting

• The answer looks fluent and is wrong. Check whether a source passage actually contains the claim.
• The loop never stops. Set a step cap and stop when the tool result repeats.

This section HTML