The Overloaded Instruction Problem
A free lesson from Swipe AI · Prompt Engineering, level 2 · updated October 2026
By the Swipe team, founded by Colin · how we make lessons
A persistent instruction can also fail in the opposite direction: by trying to do too much. Stack up enough rules — tone, format, length, forbidden topics, five different edge cases — and the instruction starts working against itself. Rules quietly contradict each other, and the tool has to guess which one wins.
Imagine a persistent instruction that says 'always be extremely concise,' 'always explain your reasoning in detail,' and 'always include a friendly greeting and sign-off.' Concise and detailed reasoning already pull in opposite directions, and now there's a greeting eating into the length budget too. The result is inconsistent — sometimes short, sometimes long, rarely quite right.
The fix is discipline, not more rules: keep a persistent instruction to a small number of genuinely important, non-conflicting points. If two rules ever compete, decide which one actually matters more and drop or soften the other, rather than piling on a third rule to referee between them.
Overloaded: "Be concise. Be thorough. Always use bullet points. Never use bullet points for lists under three items. Always sound casual. Always sound professional. Include a greeting. Skip pleasantries and get straight to the point." Lean: "Be concise and direct. Use a professional but warm tone. Skip greetings and get straight to the answer."
What typically happens when a persistent instruction is stacked with too many, sometimes conflicting, rules?
When two rules in a persistent instruction genuinely conflict, the better fix is to drop or soften one of them rather than adding a third rule to ____ between them.
Adding more and more rules to a persistent instruction always makes the output more reliable.
Designing a Good Persistent Instruction
10 questions · pass with 60% — just like in the app.
What kind of rule is a good fit for a persistent instruction?
A one-time task detail belongs in the persistent instruction so you never have to type it again.
A useful test for a persistent-instruction candidate is imagining it attached to ten unrelated future ____.
What happens when a persistent instruction gets stacked with too many, sometimes conflicting, rules?
Adding more and more rules to a persistent instruction always improves reliability.
When two rules in a persistent instruction genuinely conflict, it is usually better to drop or soften one rather than add a third rule to ____ between them.
Which detail should NOT be placed in a persistent instruction?
A persistent instruction with a small number of genuinely important, non-conflicting rules tends to work more reliably than an overloaded one.
Bury a one-time detail in the persistent layer and it will keep attaching itself to ____ future requests.
What is the best description of an overloaded persistent instruction?
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