Custom AI prompts

A custom prompt is a standing instruction the AI receives every time it touches the data it's attached to — no need to repeat "amounts are in EUR" in every chat. GoPie has three levels; each has a distinct job and a distinct reach.

Know the three levels#

All three save as you type them — edit, click away, done. There's no length limit, but shorter is better: these tokens spend context on every question.

Important

Because the project prompt doesn't reach the playground, any instruction that must hold for SQL generation on a specific dataset belongs on the dataset, not the project. Reserve the project prompt for conversational ground rules.

Write instructions that work#

Good custom prompts state facts and rules the schema can't express:

• Semantics — "amount is in cents; divide by 100 for euros."
• Business rules — "Always exclude rows where is_test = true."
• Preferred defaults — "When asked about revenue, use net_revenue unless gross is requested explicitly."
• Domain framing (project level) — "This project tracks clinical trial data; 'subjects' means trial participants."

Anti-patterns: restating what descriptions already say, listing column definitions one by one (that's what column descriptions are for), or pasting whole documents (upload them as context documents instead — searched when relevant, rather than spent on every prompt).

Verify the effect#

Custom prompts are invisible in the transcript — the fastest way to confirm one is working is to ask a question it should change ("what's our revenue?" after the net-revenue rule) and check the generated SQL under Show steps.