🎤 Prompts

Prompts are a set of instructions given to the language model to guide the response. They are used to set the context or define the kind of response you are expecting. The Oracle AI Explorer for Apps (the AI Explorer) provides both System and Context example prompts and allows you to modify these prompts to your needs.

The provided example prompts work for most models but they may not work the same way across all models. Different models may interpret or respond to the instructions in various ways requiring you to modify the example prompts per-model.

The select “Current” prompt is what will be used while interacting with the language model and will be displayed within the ChatBot input bar:

Chatbot Input Chatbot Input

System Prompt

The System prompt is typically used to guide the model on how to interpret input, what style or tone to use, or what kind of response is expected. System prompts help establish the parameters within which the language model operates, shaping its output beyond just answering direct user queries.

The System prompt for non-RAG and RAG will normally provide different instructions to the model to guide its use of the retrieved documents. You can select which prompt to use and modify the provided examples as required.

System Prompt System Prompt

Auto Switcher-oo

When enabling or disabling RAG, the System prompt will automatically switch between the Basic Example and RAG Example. When the System prompt has been set to Custom, this auto-switching will be disabled.

Examples of how the System prompt can be used:

Set the Tone/Style
  • Respond in a formal tone,
  • Respond as if you were a pirate.
  • Be friendly and casual in your answers.
Influence the behavior/role
  • Act like a professional teacher
  • Pretend you are a counselor helping someone with stress
Guide the context
  • Only provide technical details about the topic
  • Explain this concept as if the user is a beginner
Specify the output format
  • Give answers in bullet-point lists
  • Restrict your response to three sentences or less

Context Prompt

The Context prompt is used when RAG is enabled. It is used in a “private conversation” with the model, prior to retrieval, to re-phrase the user input.

Context Prompt Context Prompt

As an example to the importance of the Context prompt, if the previous interactions with the model included Oracle documentation topics about vector indexes and the user asks: “Can you give me more details?”; the RAG retrieval process should not search for similar vectors for “Can you give me more details?”. Instead, the user input should be re-phrased and a vector search should be performed on a more contextual relevant phrase, such as: “More details on creating and altering hybrid vector indexes in Oracle Database.”

When RAG is enabled, you will see what was generated and used for the vector search in the Notes: section under the References:

System Prompt System Prompt