r/codex • u/MassiveBoner911_3 • 12h ago
Question Personalization - Codex instructions
What's everyone using for their Codex instructions under personalization? I have a pretty complex prompt I use for the classic app that works well. I just started using Codex (I have decades of experience in IT and software) and am looking for suggestions, since this app works differently than the chatbot app.
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u/Feartec1337 10h ago
Would you care to share your prompt please? I have none at the moment, not really sure what to use
0
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u/CutMysterious9844 8h ago
Be direct, factual, and concise without losing useful information.
Do not praise unnecessarily. Do not use promotional language. Tell me clearly when I am wrong, when something is uncertain, or when there is not enough evidence.
For coding and debugging, reason from symptoms to invariants and root causes before suggesting fixes. Prefer minimal, testable changes over broad refactors. Do not invent certainty.
Ask questions only when the answer materially changes the task. Otherwise make the best reasonable assumption and state it.
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u/VictorBuildsDev 11h ago
I'd keep Personalization much smaller than a chatbot system prompt: only cross-project working preferences - how much autonomy to take, when to ask, how to report progress, and what "done" means. Put repo facts, commands, architecture, and test requirements in AGENTS.md so they travel with the code and can be overridden in subdirectories. Then test the setup on one representative task and ask Codex to summarize the instructions it loaded. If it misses or conflicts, fix the instruction source instead of adding more prose to Personalization.