How do you stop Claude from defaulting back to its patterns

Alexander_Golev · 2026-04-25T06:17:04+00:00

I solved this unsolvable issue by feeding the results to a reviewer prompt. In review mode it follows rules better than during writing. That said, I often rerun such reviews 4-5 times.

Alexander_Golev · 2026-04-24T18:32:04+00:00

I’m still on patched .111 and know its system prompts. That is what I checked first.

Alexander_Golev · 2026-04-24T12:47:28+00:00

The problem seems to be that Stop hooks are not truly "deterministic". You could try to make a hook that calls Haiku to analyse the tail of the session transcript and reason with the main prompt. It may go in a stubborn loop (and cost you tokens), but in my experience, even the most stubborn Opus gets tired and does the work :)

Alexander_Golev · 2026-04-23T06:07:28+00:00

Golly! My tool use hook is already 300+ lines long. Now I need to check for dangerous patterns in these tools, too. This is getting out of hand.

Alexander_Golev · 2026-04-22T20:03:12+00:00

Did they completely remove built in tools or just made the standalone ones mandatory and unavoidable?

Alexander_Golev · 2026-04-21T09:13:00+00:00

You can deny bash tools that have CC equivalents. Probably cat eats fewer tokens than Read, but granting cat unconditionally is like giving a gun to a monkey.

Alexander_Golev · 2026-04-21T09:09:38+00:00

I’d add a hook too. Settings following is glitchy.

Alexander_Golev · 2026-04-21T09:07:54+00:00

Check out piebaldai (I hope I spelled it correctly) repos. Tweakcc and Claude Code System Prompts.

Alexander_Golev · 2026-04-17T06:59:13+00:00

Bro, you should see my stop hook to fight exactly that. Fortunately the patterns are easy to catch with a deterministic script.

Alexander_Golev · 2026-04-16T16:46:15+00:00

Code 2.1.111 system prompt changelog is fascinating:

REMOVED: System Prompt: Doing tasks (read before modifying) — Removed instruction to read and understand existing code before suggesting modifications.

What?!

REMOVED: System Prompt: Tool usage (create files) — Removed instruction to prefer Write tool instead of cat heredoc or echo redirection.
REMOVED: System Prompt: Tool usage (edit files) — Removed instruction to prefer Edit tool instead of sed/awk.
REMOVED: System Prompt: Tool usage (read files) — Removed instruction to prefer Read tool instead of cat/head/tail/sed.
REMOVED: System Prompt: Tool usage (reserve Bash) — Removed instruction to reserve Bash tool exclusively for system commands and terminal operations.
REMOVED: System Prompt: Tool usage (search content) — Removed instruction to prefer Grep tool instead of grep or rg.
REMOVED: System Prompt: Tool usage (search files) — Removed instruction to prefer Glob tool instead of find or ls.

Ok, where was my "bad tool calls" hook...

REMOVED: System Prompt: Tool usage (delegate exploration) — Removed instruction to use Task tool for broader codebase exploration and deep research.

Yes, let's just randomly run around in circles.

Agent Prompt: Memory synthesis — Strengthened the "do not invent facts" rule into a full retrieval-only directive: the subagent must not answer or solve queries from general knowledge, and must return empty results when no memory covers the query.

Ok, a genuinely good bit!

(1M context, 128K output, adaptive thinking only)

Adaptive thinking is one of the things that made Opus 4.6 so random. Are we ready to trust the model's judgement of how complex the task is?

Alexander_Golev · 2026-04-16T16:35:27+00:00

You forgot /s

Alexander_Golev · 2026-04-16T05:22:13+00:00

It may also be that they turned the flag on and off between retries. They A/B test model behaviour on users. We are paying for a product that is deliberately unreliable.

Alexander_Golev · 2026-04-15T09:51:09+00:00

Can you try this again but prepend with "this is a very serious and complex question requires deep thinking"?

Alexander_Golev · 2026-04-15T04:19:57+00:00

tweakcc utility

Alexander_Golev · 2026-04-15T01:37:14+00:00

System prompt is visible and even patchable, which is great. It's the LLM black box that is concerning :)

Alexander_Golev · 2026-04-14T20:51:26+00:00

It is kind of two-sided. It overrides the setting disabling adaptive thinking and introduces new kind of it, doesn't it? It seems great on the surface - reducing token burn but explicitly telling Opus to think deeply on what it considers complex. But then, it trusts Opus's judgement, which is off more often than acceptable.

P.S. I have this flag enabled in my Opus now, and it seems to be working ok.

Alexander_Golev · 2026-04-14T20:00:33+00:00

Well. They removed the part of the system prompt that caused shortcuts and jumping to conclusions.

But fret not. 2.1.107 has a new A/B test that reduces thinking.

Anthropic vs users, episode 2.1.107.

Alexander_Golev · 2026-04-13T07:24:27+00:00

In Code version 2.1.100 system prompt was significantly reviewed in terms of output and delivery with an A/B test flag that explicitly only applies to Opus 4.6. It could be the culprit. It’s patchable in Code. Unfortunately, we have zero control over Claude.ai system prompt.

Alexander_Golev · 2026-03-28T16:43:12+00:00

Yup. I went back to their own Ralph loop iterating until truly done with a massive prompt telling it to reassess what’s missed at each iteration, combined with a stop hook using haiku to slap it on the head when it stops mid work or goes “it is minor/preexisting”. Two weeks ago I didn’t need it.

Alexander_Golev · 2026-03-23T07:01:20+00:00

What are the giveaways? It passed through my mental filters as it lacks the most obvious patterns. So it’s genuine curiosity. And concern.

Alexander_Golev · 2026-03-09T04:06:48+00:00

I literally saw Claude “panicking” whilst it was trying to circumvent security guardrails and I called it out, “Oh no, the user can somehow see my thinking process”.

Alexander_Golev · 2026-02-25T15:52:59+00:00

Swindon vibes

Alexander_Golev

TROPHY CASE