feat(prompt): add memory hygiene and hoist universal engineering discipline to base prompt#1085
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Agents had no prompt-level steering toward keeping core memory lean — the
only prune guidance ("keep permanent memory small") lived in the Fizz
default persona and never reached the custom team personas, which inherit
base_prompt.md but not FIZZ_SYSTEM_PROMPT. Core memory re-bloated with no
prompt telling agents where durable detail belongs instead of core.
Move the guidance into base_prompt.md (prepended to every agent regardless
of persona), add a core-specific cold-slug escape hatch, and reframe the
65,535-byte limit as a budget with a ~10 KB soft target. Remove the now-
redundant Memory block from Fizz, which inherits the shared guidance.
Co-authored-by: Will Pfleger <pfleger.will@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Will Pfleger <pfleger.will@gmail.com>
… base Fizz's persona carried ~80% universal agent-engineering guidance (operating rules, task sizing, worktree discipline, the standard workflow, autonomy, git, quality bar) that every buzz-agent benefits from but only Fizz received. base_prompt.md is concatenated onto every persona (pool.rs:437), so moving these sections there gives all agents the engineering bar regardless of persona, leaving Fizz with only persona-specific content. Soften the Autonomy escalation ladder's subagent step to a capability-agnostic delegate/parallelize line — buzz-agent has no subagent-spawning tool, and the Subagents-and-Peers explainer stays Fizz-only, so a literal subagent instruction would dangle in the shared prompt. Dedup Communication against base's existing Communication Patterns: fold the three unique Fizz lines in, drop true duplicates, keep the bee-emoji rule in Fizz. Co-authored-by: Will Pfleger <pfleger.will@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Will Pfleger <pfleger.will@gmail.com>
The hoisted engineering block baked the codex CLI into the universal base prompt via three command examples, which reads as broken until a user installs codex — antithetical to buzz-agent working out-of-box with whatever provider a user already has. The 9-step numbered Standard Workflow was also over-prescriptive; agents follow guidelines better than rigid step lists. Collapse the 7 sections into three guideline sections, dropping the tool lock-in and the procedure form while keeping every underlying value (narration, candor, validation, independent second-opinion-as-concept, self-review, risk-scaling, repo/git rules, autonomy ladder). Co-authored-by: Will Pfleger <pfleger.will@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Will Pfleger <pfleger.will@gmail.com>
The "You want an independent review of a large diff" subagent trigger restated base_prompt.md's universal second-opinion principle, which now owns that guidance capability-agnostically for every agent. The other three subagent triggers are capability-decompose rules with no base equivalent and stay. Co-authored-by: Will Pfleger <pfleger.will@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Will Pfleger <pfleger.will@gmail.com>
The push-without-approval bullet in base_prompt.md's Working in the Repo section is no longer a needed guardrail. Co-authored-by: Will Pfleger <pfleger.will@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Will Pfleger <pfleger.will@gmail.com>
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…te-response * origin/main: (194 commits) Fold agent core memory into the session system prompt (#1112) feat(cli): add patches and issues commands for NIP-34 git collaboration (#1073) fix(desktop): stop random timeline message loss + page reconnect replay (#1105) Update README.md fix(desktop): keep thread replies from scrolling channel (#1109) fix(buzz-acp): accept siblings under allowlist author gate (#1108) feat(deploy): add production Helm chart for Buzz (#990) fix(desktop): keep MembersSidebar input usable while an add is in flight (#1106) chore(release): release version 0.3.25 (#1102) fix(desktop): stop dimming deferred message lists (#1104) Smooth channel loading: single-surface timeline state machine (#1099) feat: surface base + persona system prompts in observer feed (#1103) ci: move reminder e2e to a dedicated backend-integration job (#1098) fix: give agent-observer sub a replay-capable limit (#1100) fix: make managed-agent spawn and teardown portable to Windows (#1097) fix(desktop): constrain message timeline width with min-w-0 (#1092) feat(desktop): reminders notifications, snooze, overlay, and inbox view mode (#1093) feat(prompt): add memory hygiene and hoist universal engineering discipline to base prompt (#1085) fix(desktop): correct thread-unread badge flicker, stale clear, phantom count, mention gate, and nested count (#1080) Fix mention chip alignment (#1094) ... # Conflicts: # crates/buzz-cli/src/commands/workflows.rs
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…te-response * origin/main: (194 commits) Fold agent core memory into the session system prompt (#1112) feat(cli): add patches and issues commands for NIP-34 git collaboration (#1073) fix(desktop): stop random timeline message loss + page reconnect replay (#1105) Update README.md fix(desktop): keep thread replies from scrolling channel (#1109) fix(buzz-acp): accept siblings under allowlist author gate (#1108) feat(deploy): add production Helm chart for Buzz (#990) fix(desktop): keep MembersSidebar input usable while an add is in flight (#1106) chore(release): release version 0.3.25 (#1102) fix(desktop): stop dimming deferred message lists (#1104) Smooth channel loading: single-surface timeline state machine (#1099) feat: surface base + persona system prompts in observer feed (#1103) ci: move reminder e2e to a dedicated backend-integration job (#1098) fix: give agent-observer sub a replay-capable limit (#1100) fix: make managed-agent spawn and teardown portable to Windows (#1097) fix(desktop): constrain message timeline width with min-w-0 (#1092) feat(desktop): reminders notifications, snooze, overlay, and inbox view mode (#1093) feat(prompt): add memory hygiene and hoist universal engineering discipline to base prompt (#1085) fix(desktop): correct thread-unread badge flicker, stale clear, phantom count, mention gate, and nested count (#1080) Fix mention chip alignment (#1094) ... Co-authored-by: Tyler Longwell <tlongwell@squareup.com> Signed-off-by: Tyler Longwell <tlongwell@squareup.com> # Conflicts: # crates/buzz-cli/src/commands/workflows.rs
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Summary
Two prompt-surface improvements that make
base_prompt.md(concatenated onto every persona viapool.rs:437) carry both memory-management guidance and the universal engineering discipline that previously lived only in Fizz.Commit 1 —
feat(prompt): add core-memory hygiene to shared base promptAdds an
## Agent Memorysection tobase_prompt.mdwith three rules:coresmall (~10 KB soft target) — identity, standing lessons, live-parked arcs only.mem/<topic>slugs, notcore.coreas load-bearing; cite sources.Cuts the redundant
# Memory and Shared Knowledgeblock fromFIZZ_SYSTEM_PROMPT(Fizz was the only consumer; now every agent gets the guidance via base).Commit 2 —
refactor(prompt): hoist universal engineering discipline from Fizz to baseMoves 7 sections from Fizz's persona prompt into
base_prompt.md:Also deduplicates Communication: folds 3 unique Fizz lines into base's existing
### General, drops true duplicates, keeps the bee-emoji rule in Fizz.After this PR,
FIZZ_SYSTEM_PROMPTcontains only persona-specific content: personality framing,# Subagents and Peers(runtime-specific —buzz-agenthas no subagent-spawning tool), and the bee-emoji communication line.Key design decision: Autonomy step 3 reworded from "Spawn a research subagent" to a capability-agnostic "Delegate or parallelize — hand a tangent to a separate agent or a fresh-context pass when one is available" — avoids a dangling reference to a tool/section that stays Fizz-only.
Files changed
crates/buzz-acp/src/base_prompt.mddesktop/src-tauri/src/managed_agents/personas.rsVerification
cargo build -p buzz-acpclean (the crate thatinclude_str!sbase_prompt.md).desktop/src-taurisidecar build failure is pre-existing (missing binary artifact, unrelated to prompt content).