Maybe these longer system prompts are part of the reason why we can give the models shorter AGENTS.md files? A lot of what people commonly write in their *.md instructions may be already covered.
What about the obvious? They put everything in the system prompt what wasn't economic enough to solve in a different way or just forgot / messed up.
Agreed. That’s why I use pi as my harness when I use Claude models through an API. Models are capable without these huge system prompts and I am not wasting context or attention. The only issue is I can’t use a subscription without Claude Code.
So, why so much noise in the system prompt? Most of the time most of it will not apply. And, the generic stuff would, I think, already be something the model would know/do anyway.
I've noticed agent skills written by models make the same mistakes; e.g. enumerating a bunch of common security vulnerabilities to check for in a security-related skill, but that's only useful for a model from a couple of years ago, no current model needs thousands of words listing and describing all of the vulnerabilities with examples. Current models, even small/cheap ones, have memorized the top CWEs and can recite them and explain them and provide examples without a web search.
It feels like a CYA document. Which, I guess a company of their size and influence has to do. But, it still feels like waste time say lot word when few word do trick.