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What it is for

instructions.prompt on a template sits once at the top of the template and applies to every section inside it. Two jobs:
  1. One place for cross-section instructions. Anything that applies to every section in this template — guidance you’d otherwise have to paste into every section’s contentPrompt or miscPrompt — lives here once.
  2. Domain & use-case priming. A single sentence telling the model what kind of note this is, the specialty, the care setting. Cheap to write; sharpens every section’s output downstream.

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Examples

A minimal, effective template prompt is just one sentence: 
Note template to use for an ophthalmology exam in NHS.
Or a cross-section rule that would otherwise be repeated in each section: 
Throughout this note, use standard NHS terminology and refer to the patient as "the patient" rather than by name in any section.
Combine both when both apply: 
This is an ED triage note for a paediatric urgent care setting in the NHS. Throughout, use standard NHS terminology and refer to the patient by age and gender only.

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Where it sits in the prompt hierarchy

The template prompt has lower priority than the section’s own instructions — if a section’s contentPrompt, writingStylePrompt or miscPrompt says one thing and the template prompt says another, the section wins. But the model reads the template prompt before the section’s writingStylePrompt and outputSchema descriptions, so it acts as a frame the rest of the prompt fills in.
PrioritySurface
1 (highest)Section instructions — contentPrompt, writingStylePrompt, miscPrompt
2Template instructions.prompt ← this recipe
3outputSchema descriptions and typed constraints
Use it for framing and shared rules, not to override what individual sections already say.

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Anti-patterns

  • Don’t restate what the template sections already clearly prompt for.
  • Don’t bury per-section rules here. If only the HPI section needs a rule, put it in HPI’s contentPrompt or miscPrompt. The template prompt is for rules that apply to every section.
  • Keep it limited and simple. Long template prompts compete with section-level instructions for attention. If it’s growing, the rule probably belongs in a specific section.