@jerryjliu0: This part is spot on: > "Overall, we found that we were over-constraining Claude Code...while these constraints were on…

This part is spot on:

“Overall, we found that we were over-constraining Claude Code…while these constraints were once needed to avoid worst case scenarios, we have since found we can delete many of them and let the model use surrounding context and judgement instead.”

I have a tendency to write extensive prompts that cover every edge case. In the past few months I have come to increasingly come to find that this can lead to counterproductive behavior where the model addresses my specific requests, but doesn’t independently provide a new perspective on the problem (explore the “unknown unknowns”)

The model still needs access to your complete context in order to be able to make complete decisions - it just doesn’t necessarily need constraints on how to best use that context. Over time I predict we will increasingly defer to the models to help solve these unknown unknowns.

FWIW I’ve found Opus 5 to be a fantastic model and continue to consume it heavily through Claude Code

Thariq (@trq212): We removed ~80% of the Claude Code system prompt for our newest models, this is what we’ve learned about writing system prompts, skills and Claude.MDs for them.