[latentsea]

The feeding can be automated in some cases. In GitHub copilot you can put it under .github/instructions and each instructions markdown file starts with a section that contains a regex of which files to apply the instructions to.

[blktiger]

You can also have an index file that describes when to use each file (nest with additional folders and index files as needed) and tell the agent to check the index for any relevant documentation they should read before they start. Sometimes it will forget and not consult the docs but often it will consult the relevant docs first to load just the things it needs for the task at hand.

[troupo]

So, again, they don't learn.

[latentsea]

Do you want them to?

[troupo]

I would. Getting tired of redirecting them in correct directions from scratch every time

[latentsea]

I tend to think it would lead to them forming opinions about the people they interact with as they learn what it's like to interact with them, and that this would also influence their behaviour/outputs. Just imagining the day where copilot's chain of thought starts to include things like "Greg is bossy and often unkind to me in PR reviews. I need to set clear boundaries with him and discontinue the relationship if he will not respect them."

[MangoToupe]

Doesn't this also consume context

[theshrike79]

Having a good prompt file ("memory") is an artform.

The AI hype folks write massive fan fiction style novellas that don't have any impact.

But there's middle ground where you tell the agent the specific things about your repo that it doesn't know based on its training. Like if your application has a specific way to run tests headless or it's compiled a certain way that's not the default average.

[troupo]

This works surprisingly well for Claude: https://github.com/obra/superpowers (in the context of rather small side projects in Elixir).

Unless, of course, the phase of the moon is wrong and Claude itself is stupid beyond all reason

[latentsea]

Yes.