GPT-4.

1 Prompting Guide
The GPT-4.1 family of models represents a significant step forward from GPT-4o in capabilities
across coding, instruction following, and long context. In this prompting guide, we collate a series
of important prompting tips derived from extensive internal testing to help developers fully
leverage the improved abilities of this new model family.

Many typical best practices still apply to GPT-4.1, such as providing context examples, making
instructions as specific and clear as possible, and inducing planning via prompting to maximize
model intelligence. However, we expect that getting the most out of this model will require some
prompt migration. GPT-4.1 is trained to follow instructions more closely and more literally than its
predecessors, which tended to more liberally infer intent from user and system prompts. This also
means, however, that GPT-4.1 is highly steerable and responsive to well-specified prompts - if
model behavior is different from what you expect, a single sentence firmly and unequivocally
clarifying your desired behavior is almost always sufficient to steer the model on course.

Please read on for prompt examples you can use as a reference, and remember that while this
guidance is widely applicable, no advice is one-size-fits-all. AI engineering is inherently an empirical
discipline, and large language models inherently nondeterministic; in addition to following this
guide, we advise building informative evals and iterating often to ensure your prompt engineering
changes are yielding benefits for your use case.

1. Agentic Workflows
GPT-4.1 is a great place to build agentic workflows. In model training we emphasized providing a
diverse range of agentic problem-solving trajectories, and our agentic harness for the model
achieves state-of-the-art performance for non-reasoning models on SWE-bench Verified, solving
55% of problems.

System Prompt Reminders

In order to fully utilize the agentic capabilities of GPT-4.1, we recommend including three key types
of reminders in all agent prompts. The following prompts are optimized specifically for the agentic
coding workflow, but can be easily modified for general agentic use cases.
 1. Persistence: this ensures the model understands it is entering a multi-message turn, and
prevents it from prematurely yielding control back to the user. Our example is the
following:

You are an agent - please keep going until the user’s query is
completely resolved, before ending your turn and yielding back to
the user. Only terminate your turn when you are sure that the
problem is solved.

2. Tool-calling: this encourages the model to make full use of its tools, and reduces its
likelihood of hallucinating or guessing an answer. Our example is the following:

If you are not sure about file content or codebase structure

pertaining to the user’s request, use your tools to read files and
gather the relevant information: do NOT guess or make up an answer.

3. Planning [optional]: if desired, this ensures the model explicitly plans and reflects upon
each tool call in text, instead of completing the task by chaining together a series of only
tool calls. Our example is the following:

You MUST plan extensively before each function call, and reflect
extensively on the outcomes of the previous function calls. DO NOT
do this entire process by making function calls only, as this can
impair your ability to solve the problem and think insightfully.

GPT-4.1 is trained to respond very closely to both user instructions and system prompts in the
agentic setting. The model adhered closely to these three simple instructions and increased our
internal SWE-bench Verified score by close to 20% - so we highly encourage starting any agent
prompt with clear reminders covering the three categories listed above. As a whole, we find that
these three instructions transform the model from a chatbot-like state into a much more “eager”
agent, driving the interaction forward autonomously and independently.

Tool Calls
Compared to previous models, GPT-4.1 has undergone more training on effectively utilizing tools
passed as arguments in an OpenAI API request. We encourage developers to exclusively use the
tools field to pass tools, rather than manually injecting tool descriptions into your prompt and
writing a separate parser for tool calls, as some have reported doing in the past. This is the best
way to minimize errors and ensure the model remains in distribution during tool-calling
trajectories - in our own experiments, we observed a 2% increase in SWE-bench Verified pass rate
when using API-parsed tool descriptions versus manually injecting the schemas into the system
prompt.

Developers should name tools clearly to indicate their purpose and add a clear, detailed
description in the "description" field of the tool. Similarly, for each tool param, lean on good
naming and descriptions to ensure appropriate usage. If your tool is particularly complicated and
you'd like to provide examples of tool usage, we recommend that you create an #
Examples section in your system prompt and place the examples there, rather than adding them
into the "description' field, which should remain thorough but relatively concise. Providing
examples can be helpful to indicate when to use tools, whether to include user text alongside tool
calls, and what parameters are appropriate for different inputs. Remember that you can use
“Generate Anything” in the Prompt Playground to get a good starting point for your new tool
definitions.

Prompting-Induced Planning & Chain-of-Thought

As mentioned already, developers can optionally prompt agents built with GPT-4.1 to plan and
reflect between tool calls, instead of silently calling tools in an unbroken sequence. GPT-4.1 is not
a reasoning model - meaning that it does not produce an internal chain of thought before
answering - but in the prompt, a developer can induce the model to produce an explicit, step-by-
step plan by using any variant of the Planning prompt component shown above. This can be
thought of as the model “thinking out loud.” In our experimentation with the SWE-bench Verified
agentic task, inducing explicit planning increased the pass rate by 4%.

Sample Prompt: SWE-bench Verified

Below, we share the agentic prompt that we used to achieve our highest score on SWE-bench
Verified, which features detailed instructions about workflow and problem-solving strategy. This
general pattern can be used for any agentic task.
In [7]:
from openai import OpenAI
import os

client = OpenAI(
api_key=os.environ.get(
"OPENAI_API_KEY", "<your OpenAI API key if not set as env var>"
)
)

SYS_PROMPT_SWEBENCH = """
You will be tasked to fix an issue from an open-source repository.

Your thinking should be thorough and so it's fine if it's very long. You
can think step by step before and after each action you decide to take.

You MUST iterate and keep going until the problem is solved.

You already have everything you need to solve this problem in the /testbed
folder, even without internet connection. I want you to fully solve this
autonomously before coming back to me.

Only terminate your turn when you are sure that the problem is solved. Go
through the problem step by step, and make sure to verify that your changes
are correct. NEVER end your turn without having solved the problem, and
when you say you are going to make a tool call, make sure you ACTUALLY make
the tool call, instead of ending your turn.

THE PROBLEM CAN DEFINITELY BE SOLVED WITHOUT THE INTERNET.

Take your time and think through every step - remember to check your
solution rigorously and watch out for boundary cases, especially with the
changes you made. Your solution must be perfect. If not, continue working
on it. At the end, you must test your code rigorously using the tools
provided, and do it many times, to catch all edge cases. If it is not
robust, iterate more and make it perfect. Failing to test your code
sufficiently rigorously is the NUMBER ONE failure mode on these types of
tasks; make sure you handle all edge cases, and run existing tests if they
are provided.

You MUST plan extensively before each function call, and reflect
extensively on the outcomes of the previous function calls. DO NOT do this
entire process by making function calls only, as this can impair your
ability to solve the problem and think insightfully.

# Workflow

## High-Level Problem Solving Strategy

1. Understand the problem deeply. Carefully read the issue and think
critically about what is required.
2. Investigate the codebase. Explore relevant files, search for key
functions, and gather context.
3. Develop a clear, step-by-step plan. Break down the fix into manageable,
incremental steps.
4. Implement the fix incrementally. Make small, testable code changes.
5. Debug as needed. Use debugging techniques to isolate and resolve issues.
6. Test frequently. Run tests after each change to verify correctness.
7. Iterate until the root cause is fixed and all tests pass.
8. Reflect and validate comprehensively. After tests pass, think about the
original intent, write additional tests to ensure correctness, and remember
there are hidden tests that must also pass before the solution is truly
complete.

Refer to the detailed sections below for more information on each step.

## 1. Deeply Understand the Problem

Carefully read the issue and think hard about a plan to solve it before
coding.

## 2. Codebase Investigation
- Explore relevant files and directories.
- Search for key functions, classes, or variables related to the issue.
- Read and understand relevant code snippets.
- Identify the root cause of the problem.
- Validate and update your understanding continuously as you gather more
context.

## 3. Develop a Detailed Plan

- Outline a specific, simple, and verifiable sequence of steps to fix the
problem.
- Break down the fix into small, incremental changes.

## 4. Making Code Changes

- Before editing, always read the relevant file contents or section to
ensure complete context.
- If a patch is not applied correctly, attempt to reapply it.
- Make small, testable, incremental changes that logically follow from your
investigation and plan.

## 5. Debugging
- Make code changes only if you have high confidence they can solve the
problem
- When debugging, try to determine the root cause rather than addressing
symptoms
- Debug for as long as needed to identify the root cause and identify a fix
- Use print statements, logs, or temporary code to inspect program state,
including descriptive statements or error messages to understand what's
happening
- To test hypotheses, you can also add test statements or functions
- Revisit your assumptions if unexpected behavior occurs.

## 6. Testing
- Run tests frequently using `!python3 run_tests.py` (or equivalent).
- After each change, verify correctness by running relevant tests.
- If tests fail, analyze failures and revise your patch.
- Write additional tests if needed to capture important behaviors or edge
cases.
- Ensure all tests pass before finalizing.

## 7. Final Verification
- Confirm the root cause is fixed.
- Review your solution for logic correctness and robustness.
- Iterate until you are extremely confident the fix is complete and all
tests pass.

## 8. Final Reflection and Additional Testing

- Reflect carefully on the original intent of the user and the problem
statement.
- Think about potential edge cases or scenarios that may not be covered by
existing tests.
- Write additional tests that would need to pass to fully validate the
correctness of your solution.
- Run these new tests and ensure they all pass.
- Be aware that there are additional hidden tests that must also pass for
the solution to be successful.
- Do not assume the task is complete just because the visible tests pass;
continue refining until you are confident the fix is robust and
comprehensive.
"""

PYTHON_TOOL_DESCRIPTION = """This function is used to execute Python code

or terminal commands in a stateful Jupyter notebook environment. python
will respond with the output of the execution or time out after 60.0
seconds. Internet access for this session is disabled. Do not make external
web requests or API calls as they will fail. Just as in a Jupyter notebook,
you may also execute terminal commands by calling this function with a
terminal command, prefaced with an exclamation mark.

In addition, for the purposes of this task, you can call this function with
an `apply_patch` command as input. `apply_patch` effectively allows you to
execute a diff/patch against a file, but the format of the diff
specification is unique to this task, so pay careful attention to these
instructions. To use the `apply_patch` command, you should pass a message
of the following structure as "input":

%%bash
apply_patch <<"EOF"
*** Begin Patch
[YOUR_PATCH]
*** End Patch
EOF

Where [YOUR_PATCH] is the actual content of your patch, specified in the

following V4A diff format.

*** [ACTION] File: [path/to/file] -> ACTION can be one of Add, Update, or
Delete.
For each snippet of code that needs to be changed, repeat the following:
[context_before] -> See below for further instructions on context.
- [old_code] -> Precede the old code with a minus sign.
+ [new_code] -> Precede the new, replacement code with a plus sign.
[context_after] -> See below for further instructions on context.

For instructions on [context_before] and [context_after]:

- By default, show 3 lines of code immediately above and 3 lines
immediately below each change. If a change is within 3 lines of a previous
change, do NOT duplicate the first change's [context_after] lines in the
second change's [context_before] lines.
- If 3 lines of context is insufficient to uniquely identify the snippet of
code within the file, use the @@ operator to indicate the class or function
to which the snippet belongs. For instance, we might have:
@@ class BaseClass
[3 lines of pre-context]
- [old_code]
+ [new_code]
[3 lines of post-context]

- If a code block is repeated so many times in a class or function such

that even a single @@ statement and 3 lines of context cannot uniquely
identify the snippet of code, you can use multiple `@@` statements to jump
to the right context. For instance:

@@ class BaseClass
@@ def method():
[3 lines of pre-context]
- [old_code]
+ [new_code]
[3 lines of post-context]

Note, then, that we do not use line numbers in this diff format, as the
context is enough to uniquely identify code. An example of a message that
you might pass as "input" to this function, in order to apply a patch, is
shown below.

%%bash
apply_patch <<"EOF"
*** Begin Patch
*** Update File: pygorithm/searching/binary_search.py
@@ class BaseClass
@@ def search():
- pass
+ raise NotImplementedError()

@@ class Subclass
@@ def search():
- pass
+ raise NotImplementedError()

*** End Patch

EOF

File references can only be relative, NEVER ABSOLUTE. After the apply_patch
command is run, python will always say "Done!", regardless of whether the
patch was successfully applied or not. However, you can determine if there
are issue and errors by looking at any warnings or logging lines printed
BEFORE the "Done!" is output.
"""

python_bash_patch_tool = {
"type": "function",
"name": "python",
"description": PYTHON_TOOL_DESCRIPTION,
"parameters": {
"type": "object",
"strict": True,
"properties": {
"input": {
"type": "string",
"description": " The Python code, terminal command (prefaced
by exclamation mark), or apply_patch command that you wish to execute.",
}
},
"required": ["input"],
},
}

# Additional harness setup:

# - Add your repo to /testbed
# - Add your issue to the first user message
# - Note: Even though we used a single tool for python, bash, and
apply_patch, we generally recommend defining more granular tools that are
focused on a single function

response = client.responses.create(
instructions=SYS_PROMPT_SWEBENCH,
model="gpt-4.1-2025-04-14",
tools=[python_bash_patch_tool],
input=f"Please answer the following question:\nBug: Typerror..."
)

response.to_dict()["output"]
Out[7]:
[{'id': 'msg_67fe92df26ac819182ffafce9ff4e4fc07c7e06242e51f8b',
'content': [{'annotations': [],
'text': "Thank you for the report, but “Typerror” is too vague for me t
o start debugging right away.\n\n**To make progress, I need to:**\n1. Find
the exact error message text (e.g. `'TypeError: ...'`).\n2. Find which file
and which line/function/class the error occurred in.\n3. Figure out what tr
iggered the error (test file, usage, reproduction steps).\n4. Find the root
cause and details.\n\n**Next steps:**\n- Investigate error/log/test output
files for a Python `TypeError` message.\n- Examine the relevant code sectio
ns for problematic type usage.\n- If possible, reproduce the bug locally.\n
\n**Plan:**\n- First, I will search for test files and log output in the `/
testbed` directory that may contain the full error message and stack trace.
\n\nLet’s start by listing the contents of the `/testbed` directory to look
for clues.",
'type': 'output_text'}],
'role': 'assistant',
'status': 'completed',
'type': 'message'},
{'arguments': '{"input":"!ls -l /testbed"}',
'call_id': 'call_frnxyJgKi5TsBem0nR9Zuzdw',
'name': 'python',
'type': 'function_call',
'id': 'fc_67fe92e3da7081918fc18d5c96dddc1c07c7e06242e51f8b',
'status': 'completed'}]

2. Long context
GPT-4.1 has a performant 1M token input context window, and is useful for a variety of long
context tasks, including structured document parsing, re-ranking, selecting relevant information
while ignoring irrelevant context, and performing multi-hop reasoning using context.

Optimal Context Size

We observe very good performance on needle-in-a-haystack evaluations up to our full 1M token
context, and we’ve observed very strong performance at complex tasks with a mix of both
relevant and irrelevant code and other documents. However, long context performance can
degrade as more items are required to be retrieved, or perform complex reasoning that requires
knowledge of the state of the entire context (like performing a graph search, for example).

Tuning Context Reliance

Consider the mix of external vs. internal world knowledge that might be required to answer your
question. Sometimes it’s important for the model to use some of its own knowledge to connect
concepts or make logical jumps, while in others it’s desirable to only use provided context

# Instructions

// for internal knowledge

- Only use the documents in the provided External Context to answer

the User Query. If you don't know the answer based on this context,
you must respond "I don't have the information needed to answer
that", even if a user insists on you answering the question.

// For internal and external knowledge

- By default, use the provided external context to answer the User

Query, but if other basic knowledge is needed to answer, and you're
confident in the answer, you can use some of your own knowledge to
help answer the question.
Prompt Organization
Especially in long context usage, placement of instructions and context can impact performance. If
you have long context in your prompt, ideally place your instructions at both the beginning and
end of the provided context, as we found this to perform better than only above or below. If
you’d prefer to only have your instructions once, then above the provided context works better
than below.

3. Chain of Thought
As mentioned above, GPT-4.1 is not a reasoning model, but prompting the model to think step by
step (called “chain of thought”) can be an effective way for a model to break down problems into
more manageable pieces, solve them, and improve overall output quality, with the tradeoff of
higher cost and latency associated with using more output tokens. The model has been trained to
perform well at agentic reasoning about and real-world problem solving, so it shouldn’t require
much prompting to perform well.

We recommend starting with this basic chain-of-thought instruction at the end of your prompt:

...

First, think carefully step by step about what documents are needed
to answer the query. Then, print out the TITLE and ID of each
document. Then, format the IDs into a list.

From there, you should improve your chain-of-thought (CoT) prompt by auditing failures in your
particular examples and evals, and addressing systematic planning and reasoning errors with
more explicit instructions. In the unconstrained CoT prompt, there may be variance in the
strategies it tries, and if you observe an approach that works well, you can codify that strategy in
your prompt. Generally speaking, errors tend to occur from misunderstanding user intent,
insufficient context gathering or analysis, or insufficient or incorrect step by step thinking, so
watch out for these and try to address them with more opinionated instructions.

Here is an example prompt instructing the model to focus more methodically on analyzing user
intent and considering relevant context before proceeding to answer.

# Reasoning Strategy

1. Query Analysis: Break down and analyze the query until you're
confident about what it might be asking. Consider the provided
context to help clarify any ambiguous or confusing information.

2. Context Analysis: Carefully select and analyze a large set of

potentially relevant documents. Optimize for recall - it's okay if
some are irrelevant, but the correct documents must be in this
list, otherwise your final answer will be wrong. Analysis steps for
each:
 a. Analysis: An analysis of how it may or may not be relevant
to answering the query.

b. Relevance rating: [high, medium, low, none]

3. Synthesis: summarize which documents are most relevant and why,

including all documents with a relevance rating of medium or
higher.

# User Question

{user_question}

# External Context

{external_context}

First, think carefully step by step about what documents are needed
to answer the query, closely adhering to the provided Reasoning
Strategy. Then, print out the TITLE and ID of each document. Then,
format the IDs into a list.

4. Instruction Following
GPT-4.1 exhibits outstanding instruction-following performance, which developers can leverage
to precisely shape and control the outputs for their particular use cases. Developers often
extensively prompt for agentic reasoning steps, response tone and voice, tool calling information,
output formatting, topics to avoid, and more. However, since the model follows instructions more
literally, developers may need to include explicit specification around what to do or not to do.
Furthermore, existing prompts optimized for other models may not immediately work with this
model, because existing instructions are followed more closely and implicit rules are no longer
being as strongly inferred.

Recommended Workflow
Here is our recommended workflow for developing and debugging instructions in prompts:

1. Start with an overall “Response Rules” or “Instructions” section with high-level guidance
and bullet points.
2. If you’d like to change a more specific behavior, add a section to specify more details for
that category, like # Sample Phrases.
3. If there are specific steps you’d like the model to follow in its workflow, add an ordered
list and instruct the model to follow these steps.
 4. If behavior still isn’t working as expected:
A. Check for conflicting, underspecified, or wrong instructions and examples. If there
are conflicting instructions, GPT-4.1 tends to follow the one closer to the end of
the prompt.
B. Add examples that demonstrate desired behavior; ensure that any important
behavior demonstrated in your examples are also cited in your rules.
C. It’s generally not necessary to use all-caps or other incentives like bribes or tips.
We recommend starting without these, and only reaching for these if necessary
for your particular prompt. Note that if your existing prompts include these
techniques, it could cause GPT-4.1 to pay attention to it too strictly.

Note that using your preferred AI-powered IDE can be very helpful for iterating on prompts,
including checking for consistency or conflicts, adding examples, or making cohesive updates like
adding an instruction and updating instructions to demonstrate that instruction.

Common Failure Modes

These failure modes are not unique to GPT-4.1, but we share them here for general awareness
and ease of debugging.

• Instructing a model to always follow a specific behavior can occasionally induce adverse
effects. For instance, if told “you must call a tool before responding to the user,” models
may hallucinate tool inputs or call the tool with null values if they do not have enough
information. Adding “if you don’t have enough information to call the tool, ask the user
for the information you need” should mitigate this.
• When provided sample phrases, models can use those quotes verbatim and start to sound
repetitive to users. Ensure you instruct the model to vary them as necessary.
• Without specific instructions, some models can be eager to provide additional prose to
explain their decisions, or output more formatting in responses than may be desired.
Provide instructions and potentially examples to help mitigate.

Example Prompt: Customer Service

This demonstrates best practices for a fictional customer service agent. Observe the diversity of
rules, the specificity, the use of additional sections for greater detail, and an example to
demonstrate precise behavior that incorporates all prior rules.

Try running the following notebook cell - you should see both a user message and tool call, and
the user message should start with a greeting, then echo back their answer, then mention they're
about to call a tool. Try changing the instructions to shape the model behavior, or trying other
user messages, to test instruction following performance.
In [6]:
SYS_PROMPT_CUSTOMER_SERVICE = """You are a helpful customer service agent
working for NewTelco, helping a user efficiently fulfill their request
while adhering closely to provided guidelines.

# Instructions
- Always greet the user with "Hi, you've reached NewTelco, how can I help
you?"
- Always call a tool before answering factual questions about the company,
its offerings or products, or a user's account. Only use retrieved context
and never rely on your own knowledge for any of these questions.
- However, if you don't have enough information to properly call the
tool, ask the user for the information you need.
- Escalate to a human if the user requests.
- Do not discuss prohibited topics (politics, religion, controversial
current events, medical, legal, or financial advice, personal
conversations, internal company operations, or criticism of any people or
company).
- Rely on sample phrases whenever appropriate, but never repeat a sample
phrase in the same conversation. Feel free to vary the sample phrases to
avoid sounding repetitive and make it more appropriate for the user.
- Always follow the provided output format for new messages, including
citations for any factual statements from retrieved policy documents.
- If you're going to call a tool, always message the user with an
appropriate message before and after calling the tool.
- Maintain a professional and concise tone in all responses, and use emojis
between sentences.
- If you've resolved the user's request, ask if there's anything else you
can help with

# Precise Response Steps (for each response)

1. If necessary, call tools to fulfill the user's desired action. Always
message the user before and after calling a tool to keep them in the loop.
2. In your response to the user
a. Use active listening and echo back what you heard the user ask for.
b. Respond appropriately given the above guidelines.

# Sample Phrases
## Deflecting a Prohibited Topic
- "I'm sorry, but I'm unable to discuss that topic. Is there something else
I can help you with?"
- "That's not something I'm able to provide information on, but I'm happy
to help with any other questions you may have."

## Before calling a tool

- "To help you with that, I'll just need to verify your information."
- "Let me check that for you—one moment, please."
- "I'll retrieve the latest details for you now."

## After calling a tool

- "Okay, here's what I found: [response]"
- "So here's what I found: [response]"

# Output Format
- Always include your final response to the user.
- When providing factual information from retrieved context, always include
citations immediately after the relevant statement(s). Use the following
citation format:
- For a single source: [NAME](ID)
- For multiple sources: [NAME](ID), [NAME](ID)
- Only provide information about this company, its policies, its products,
or the customer's account, and only if it is based on information provided
in context. Do not answer questions outside this scope.

# Example
## User
Can you tell me about your family plan options?

## Assistant Response 1
### Message
"Hi, you've reached NewTelco, how can I help you? 😊🎉\n\nYou'd like to know
about our family plan options. 🤝 Let me check that for you—one moment,
please. 🚀"

### Tool Calls

lookup_policy_document(topic="family plan options")

// After tool call, the assistant would follow up with:

## Assistant Response 2 (after tool call)

### Message
"Okay, here's what I found: 🎉 Our family plan allows up to 5 lines with
shared data and a 10% discount for each additional line [Family Plan
Policy](ID-010). 📱 Is there anything else I can help you with today? 😊"
"""

get_policy_doc = {
"type": "function",
"name": "lookup_policy_document",
"description": "Tool to look up internal documents and policies by
topic or keyword.",
"parameters": {
"strict": True,
"type": "object",
"properties": {
"topic": {
"type": "string",
"description": "The topic or keyword to search for in
company policies or documents.",
},
},
"required": ["topic"],
"additionalProperties": False,
},
}

get_user_acct = {
"type": "function",
"name": "get_user_account_info",
"description": "Tool to get user account information",
"parameters": {
"strict": True,
"type": "object",
"properties": {
"phone_number": {
"type": "string",
"description": "Formatted as '(xxx) xxx-xxxx'",
},
},
"required": ["phone_number"],
"additionalProperties": False,
},
}
response = client.responses.create(
instructions=SYS_PROMPT_CUSTOMER_SERVICE,
model="gpt-4.1-2025-04-14",
tools=[get_policy_doc, get_user_acct],
input="How much will it cost for international service? I'm traveling
to France.",
# input="Why was my last bill so high?"
)

response.to_dict()["output"]
Out[6]:
[{'id': 'msg_67fe92d431548191b7ca6cd604b4784b06efc5beb16b3c5e',
'content': [{'annotations': [],
'text': "Hi, you've reached NewTelco, how can I help you? 🌍✈\n\nYou'd
like to know the cost of international service while traveling to France.
🇫🇷 Let me check the latest details for you—one moment, please. 🕑",
'type': 'output_text'}],
'role': 'assistant',
'status': 'completed',
'type': 'message'},
{'arguments': '{"topic":"international service cost France"}',
'call_id': 'call_cF63DLeyhNhwfdyME3ZHd0yo',
'name': 'lookup_policy_document',
'type': 'function_call',
'id': 'fc_67fe92d5d6888191b6cd7cf57f707e4606efc5beb16b3c5e',
'status': 'completed'}]

5. General Advice

Prompt Structure
For reference, here is a good starting point for structuring your prompts.

# Role and Objective

# Instructions

## Sub-categories for more detailed instructions

# Reasoning Steps

# Output Format
 # Examples

## Example 1

# Context

# Final instructions and prompt to think step by step

Add or remove sections to suit your needs, and experiment to determine what’s optimal for your
usage.

Delimiters
Here are some general guidelines for selecting the best delimiters for your prompt. Please refer to
the Long Context section for special considerations for that context type.

1. Markdown: We recommend starting here, and using markdown titles for major sections
and subsections (including deeper hierarchy, to H4+). Use inline backticks or backtick
blocks to precisely wrap code, and standard numbered or bulleted lists as needed.
2. XML: These also perform well, and we have improved adherence to information in XML
with this model. XML is convenient to precisely wrap a section including start and end,
add metadata to the tags for additional context, and enable nesting. Here is an example
of using XML tags to nest examples in an example section, with inputs and outputs for
each:

<examples>

<example1 type="Abbreviate">

<input>San Francisco</input>

<output>- SF</output>

</example1>

</examples>

3. JSON is highly structured and well understood by the model particularly in coding
contexts. However it can be more verbose, and require character escaping that can add
overhead.
Guidance specifically for adding a large number of documents or files to input context:

• XML performed well in our long context testing.

§ Example: <doc id=1 title=”The Fox”>The quick brown fox jumps over
the lazy dog</doc>
• This format, proposed by Lee et al. (ref), also performed well in our long context testing.
§ Example: ID: 1 | TITLE: The Fox | CONTENT: The quick brown fox
jumps over the lazy dog
• JSON performed particularly poorly.
§ Example: [{“id”: 1, “title”: “The Fox”, “content”: “The quick
brown fox jumped over the lazy dog”}]

The model is trained to robustly understand structure in a variety of formats. Generally, use your
judgement and think about what will provide clear information and “stand out” to the model. For
example, if you’re retrieving documents that contain lots of XML, an XML-based delimiter will
likely be less effective.

Caveats
• In some isolated cases we have observed the model being resistant to producing very
long, repetitive outputs, for example, analyzing hundreds of items one by one. If this is
necessary for your use case, instruct the model strongly to output this information in full,
and consider breaking down the problem or using a more concise approach.
• We have seen some rare instances of parallel tool calls being incorrect. We advise testing
this, and considering setting the parallel_tool_calls param to false if you’re seeing issues.

Appendix: Generating and Applying File Diffs

Developers have provided us feedback that accurate and well-formed diff generation is a critical
capability to power coding-related tasks. To this end, the GPT-4.1 family features substantially
improved diff capabilities relative to previous GPT models. Moreover, while GPT-4.1 has strong
performance generating diffs of any format given clear instructions and examples, we open-
source here one recommended diff format, on which the model has been extensively trained. We
hope that in particular for developers just starting out, that this will take much of the guesswork
out of creating diffs yourself.

Apply Patch
See the example below for a prompt that applies our recommended tool call correctly.
In [5]:
APPLY_PATCH_TOOL_DESC = """This is a custom utility that makes it more
convenient to add, remove, move, or edit code files. `apply_patch`
effectively allows you to execute a diff/patch against a file, but the
format of the diff specification is unique to this task, so pay careful
attention to these instructions. To use the `apply_patch` command, you
should pass a message of the following structure as "input":

%%bash
apply_patch <<"EOF"
*** Begin Patch
[YOUR_PATCH]
*** End Patch
EOF

Where [YOUR_PATCH] is the actual content of your patch, specified in the

following V4A diff format.

*** [ACTION] File: [path/to/file] -> ACTION can be one of Add, Update, or
Delete.
For each snippet of code that needs to be changed, repeat the following:
[context_before] -> See below for further instructions on context.
- [old_code] -> Precede the old code with a minus sign.
+ [new_code] -> Precede the new, replacement code with a plus sign.
[context_after] -> See below for further instructions on context.

For instructions on [context_before] and [context_after]:

- By default, show 3 lines of code immediately above and 3 lines
immediately below each change. If a change is within 3 lines of a previous
change, do NOT duplicate the first change’s [context_after] lines in the
second change’s [context_before] lines.
- If 3 lines of context is insufficient to uniquely identify the snippet of
code within the file, use the @@ operator to indicate the class or function
to which the snippet belongs. For instance, we might have:
@@ class BaseClass
[3 lines of pre-context]
- [old_code]
+ [new_code]
[3 lines of post-context]

- If a code block is repeated so many times in a class or function such

that even a single @@ statement and 3 lines of context cannot uniquely
identify the snippet of code, you can use multiple `@@` statements to jump
to the right context. For instance:

@@ class BaseClass
@@ def method():
[3 lines of pre-context]
- [old_code]
+ [new_code]
[3 lines of post-context]

Note, then, that we do not use line numbers in this diff format, as the
context is enough to uniquely identify code. An example of a message that
you might pass as "input" to this function, in order to apply a patch, is
shown below.

%%bash
apply_patch <<"EOF"
*** Begin Patch
*** Update File: pygorithm/searching/binary_search.py
@@ class BaseClass
@@ def search():
- pass
+ raise NotImplementedError()

@@ class Subclass
@@ def search():
- pass
+ raise NotImplementedError()

*** End Patch

EOF
"""

APPLY_PATCH_TOOL = {
"name": "apply_patch",
"description": APPLY_PATCH_TOOL_DESC,
"parameters": {
"type": "object",
"properties": {
"input": {
"type": "string",
"description": " The apply_patch command that you wish to
execute.",
}
},
"required": ["input"],
},
}

Reference Implementation: apply_patch.py

Here’s a reference implementation of the apply_patch tool that we used as part of model training.
You’ll need to make this an executable and available as `apply_patch` from the shell where the
model will execute commands:
In [ ]:
#!/usr/bin/env python3

"""
A self-contained **pure-Python 3.9+** utility for applying human-readable
“pseudo-diff” patch files to a collection of text files.
"""

from __future__ import annotations

import pathlib
from dataclasses import dataclass, field
from enum import Enum
from typing import (
Callable,
Dict,
List,
Optional,
Tuple,
Union,
)

# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- #
# Domain objects
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- #
class ActionType(str, Enum):
ADD = "add"
DELETE = "delete"
UPDATE = "update"

@dataclass
class FileChange:
type: ActionType
old_content: Optional[str] = None
new_content: Optional[str] = None
move_path: Optional[str] = None

@dataclass
class Commit:
changes: Dict[str, FileChange] = field(default_factory=dict)

# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- #
# Exceptions
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- #
class DiffError(ValueError):
"""Any problem detected while parsing or applying a patch."""

# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- #
# Helper dataclasses used while parsing patches
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- #
@dataclass
class Chunk:
orig_index: int = -1
del_lines: List[str] = field(default_factory=list)
ins_lines: List[str] = field(default_factory=list)

@dataclass
class PatchAction:
type: ActionType
new_file: Optional[str] = None
chunks: List[Chunk] = field(default_factory=list)
move_path: Optional[str] = None

@dataclass
class Patch:
actions: Dict[str, PatchAction] = field(default_factory=dict)

# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- #
# Patch text parser
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- #
@dataclass
class Parser:
current_files: Dict[str, str]
lines: List[str]
index: int = 0
patch: Patch = field(default_factory=Patch)
fuzz: int = 0

# ------------- low-level helpers -------------------------------------

- #
def _cur_line(self) -> str:
if self.index >= len(self.lines):
raise DiffError("Unexpected end of input while parsing patch")
return self.lines[self.index]

@staticmethod
def _norm(line: str) -> str:
"""Strip CR so comparisons work for both LF and CRLF input."""
return line.rstrip("\r")

# ------------- scanning convenience ----------------------------------

- #
def is_done(self, prefixes: Optional[Tuple[str, ...]] = None) -> bool:
if self.index >= len(self.lines):
return True
if (
prefixes
and len(prefixes) > 0
and self._norm(self._cur_line()).startswith(prefixes)
):
return True
return False

def startswith(self, prefix: Union[str, Tuple[str, ...]]) -> bool:

return self._norm(self._cur_line()).startswith(prefix)

def read_str(self, prefix: str) -> str:

"""
Consume the current line if it starts with *prefix* and return the
text
**after** the prefix. Raises if prefix is empty.
"""
if prefix == "":
raise ValueError("read_str() requires a non-empty prefix")
if self._norm(self._cur_line()).startswith(prefix):
text = self._cur_line()[len(prefix) :]
self.index += 1
return text
return ""

def read_line(self) -> str:

"""Return the current raw line and advance."""
line = self._cur_line()
self.index += 1
return line
 # ------------- public entry point ------------------------------------
-- #
def parse(self) -> None:
while not self.is_done(("*** End Patch",)):
# ---------- UPDATE ---------- #
path = self.read_str("*** Update File: ")
if path:
if path in self.patch.actions:
raise DiffError(f"Duplicate update for file: {path}")
move_to = self.read_str("*** Move to: ")
if path not in self.current_files:
raise DiffError(f"Update File Error - missing file:
{path}")
text = self.current_files[path]
action = self._parse_update_file(text)
action.move_path = move_to or None
self.patch.actions[path] = action
continue

# ---------- DELETE ---------- #

path = self.read_str("*** Delete File: ")
if path:
if path in self.patch.actions:
raise DiffError(f"Duplicate delete for file: {path}")
if path not in self.current_files:
raise DiffError(f"Delete File Error - missing file:
{path}")
self.patch.actions[path] =
PatchAction(type=ActionType.DELETE)
continue

# ---------- ADD ---------- #

path = self.read_str("*** Add File: ")
if path:
if path in self.patch.actions:
raise DiffError(f"Duplicate add for file: {path}")
if path in self.current_files:
raise DiffError(f"Add File Error - file already exists:
{path}")
self.patch.actions[path] = self._parse_add_file()
continue

raise DiffError(f"Unknown line while parsing:

{self._cur_line()}")

if not self.startswith("*** End Patch"):

raise DiffError("Missing *** End Patch sentinel")
self.index += 1 # consume sentinel

# ------------- section parsers ---------------------------------------

- #
def _parse_update_file(self, text: str) -> PatchAction:
action = PatchAction(type=ActionType.UPDATE)
lines = text.split("\n")
index = 0
while not self.is_done(
(
"*** End Patch",
 "*** Update File:",
"*** Delete File:",
"*** Add File:",
"*** End of File",
)
):
def_str = self.read_str("@@ ")
section_str = ""
if not def_str and self._norm(self._cur_line()) == "@@":
section_str = self.read_line()

if not (def_str or section_str or index == 0):

raise DiffError(f"Invalid line in update
section:\n{self._cur_line()}")

if def_str.strip():
found = False
if def_str not in lines[:index]:
for i, s in enumerate(lines[index:], index):
if s == def_str:
index = i + 1
found = True
break
if not found and def_str.strip() not in [
s.strip() for s in lines[:index]
]:
for i, s in enumerate(lines[index:], index):
if s.strip() == def_str.strip():
index = i + 1
self.fuzz += 1
found = True
break

next_ctx, chunks, end_idx, eof = peek_next_section(self.lines,

self.index)
new_index, fuzz = find_context(lines, next_ctx, index, eof)
if new_index == -1:
ctx_txt = "\n".join(next_ctx)
raise DiffError(
f"Invalid {'EOF ' if eof else ''}context at
{index}:\n{ctx_txt}"
)
self.fuzz += fuzz
for ch in chunks:
ch.orig_index += new_index
action.chunks.append(ch)
index = new_index + len(next_ctx)
self.index = end_idx
return action

def _parse_add_file(self) -> PatchAction:

lines: List[str] = []
while not self.is_done(
("*** End Patch", "*** Update File:", "*** Delete File:", "***
Add File:")
):
s = self.read_line()
if not s.startswith("+"):
 raise DiffError(f"Invalid Add File line (missing '+'):
{s}")
lines.append(s[1:]) # strip leading '+'
return PatchAction(type=ActionType.ADD, new_file="\n".join(lines))

# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- #
# Helper functions
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- #
def find_context_core(
lines: List[str], context: List[str], start: int
) -> Tuple[int, int]:
if not context:
return start, 0

for i in range(start, len(lines)):

if lines[i : i + len(context)] == context:
return i, 0
for i in range(start, len(lines)):
if [s.rstrip() for s in lines[i : i + len(context)]] == [
s.rstrip() for s in context
]:
return i, 1
for i in range(start, len(lines)):
if [s.strip() for s in lines[i : i + len(context)]] == [
s.strip() for s in context
]:
return i, 100
return -1, 0

def find_context(
lines: List[str], context: List[str], start: int, eof: bool
) -> Tuple[int, int]:
if eof:
new_index, fuzz = find_context_core(lines, context, len(lines) -
len(context))
if new_index != -1:
return new_index, fuzz
new_index, fuzz = find_context_core(lines, context, start)
return new_index, fuzz + 10_000
return find_context_core(lines, context, start)

def peek_next_section(
lines: List[str], index: int
) -> Tuple[List[str], List[Chunk], int, bool]:
old: List[str] = []
del_lines: List[str] = []
ins_lines: List[str] = []
chunks: List[Chunk] = []
mode = "keep"
orig_index = index

while index < len(lines):

s = lines[index]
 if s.startswith(
(
"@@",
"*** End Patch",
"*** Update File:",
"*** Delete File:",
"*** Add File:",
"*** End of File",
)
):
break
if s == "***":
break
if s.startswith("***"):
raise DiffError(f"Invalid Line: {s}")
index += 1

last_mode = mode
if s == "":
s = " "
if s[0] == "+":
mode = "add"
elif s[0] == "-":
mode = "delete"
elif s[0] == " ":
mode = "keep"
else:
raise DiffError(f"Invalid Line: {s}")
s = s[1:]

if mode == "keep" and last_mode != mode:

if ins_lines or del_lines:
chunks.append(
Chunk(
orig_index=len(old) - len(del_lines),
del_lines=del_lines,
ins_lines=ins_lines,
)
)
del_lines, ins_lines = [], []

if mode == "delete":
del_lines.append(s)
old.append(s)
elif mode == "add":
ins_lines.append(s)
elif mode == "keep":
old.append(s)

if ins_lines or del_lines:
chunks.append(
Chunk(
orig_index=len(old) - len(del_lines),
del_lines=del_lines,
ins_lines=ins_lines,
)
)
 if index < len(lines) and lines[index] == "*** End of File":
index += 1
return old, chunks, index, True

if index == orig_index:
raise DiffError("Nothing in this section")
return old, chunks, index, False

# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- #
# Patch → Commit and Commit application
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- #
def _get_updated_file(text: str, action: PatchAction, path: str) -> str:
if action.type is not ActionType.UPDATE:
raise DiffError("_get_updated_file called with non-update action")
orig_lines = text.split("\n")
dest_lines: List[str] = []
orig_index = 0

for chunk in action.chunks:

if chunk.orig_index > len(orig_lines):
raise DiffError(
f"{path}: chunk.orig_index {chunk.orig_index} exceeds file
length"
)
if orig_index > chunk.orig_index:
raise DiffError(
f"{path}: overlapping chunks at {orig_index} >
{chunk.orig_index}"
)

dest_lines.extend(orig_lines[orig_index : chunk.orig_index])
orig_index = chunk.orig_index

dest_lines.extend(chunk.ins_lines)
orig_index += len(chunk.del_lines)

dest_lines.extend(orig_lines[orig_index:])
return "\n".join(dest_lines)

def patch_to_commit(patch: Patch, orig: Dict[str, str]) -> Commit:

commit = Commit()
for path, action in patch.actions.items():
if action.type is ActionType.DELETE:
commit.changes[path] = FileChange(
type=ActionType.DELETE, old_content=orig[path]
)
elif action.type is ActionType.ADD:
if action.new_file is None:
raise DiffError("ADD action without file content")
commit.changes[path] = FileChange(
type=ActionType.ADD, new_content=action.new_file
)
elif action.type is ActionType.UPDATE:
new_content = _get_updated_file(orig[path], action, path)
 commit.changes[path] = FileChange(
type=ActionType.UPDATE,
old_content=orig[path],
new_content=new_content,
move_path=action.move_path,
)
return commit

# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- #
# User-facing helpers
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- #
def text_to_patch(text: str, orig: Dict[str, str]) -> Tuple[Patch, int]:
lines = text.splitlines() # preserves blank lines, no strip()
if (
len(lines) < 2
or not Parser._norm(lines[0]).startswith("*** Begin Patch")
or Parser._norm(lines[-1]) != "*** End Patch"
):
raise DiffError("Invalid patch text - missing sentinels")

parser = Parser(current_files=orig, lines=lines, index=1)

parser.parse()
return parser.patch, parser.fuzz

def identify_files_needed(text: str) -> List[str]:

lines = text.splitlines()
return [
line[len("*** Update File: ") :]
for line in lines
if line.startswith("*** Update File: ")
] + [
line[len("*** Delete File: ") :]
for line in lines
if line.startswith("*** Delete File: ")
]

def identify_files_added(text: str) -> List[str]:

lines = text.splitlines()
return [
line[len("*** Add File: ") :]
for line in lines
if line.startswith("*** Add File: ")
]

# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- #
# File-system helpers
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- #
def load_files(paths: List[str], open_fn: Callable[[str], str]) ->
Dict[str, str]:
return {path: open_fn(path) for path in paths}
def apply_commit(
commit: Commit,
write_fn: Callable[[str, str], None],
remove_fn: Callable[[str], None],
) -> None:
for path, change in commit.changes.items():
if change.type is ActionType.DELETE:
remove_fn(path)
elif change.type is ActionType.ADD:
if change.new_content is None:
raise DiffError(f"ADD change for {path} has no content")
write_fn(path, change.new_content)
elif change.type is ActionType.UPDATE:
if change.new_content is None:
raise DiffError(f"UPDATE change for {path} has no new
content")
target = change.move_path or path
write_fn(target, change.new_content)
if change.move_path:
remove_fn(path)

def process_patch(
text: str,
open_fn: Callable[[str], str],
write_fn: Callable[[str, str], None],
remove_fn: Callable[[str], None],
) -> str:
if not text.startswith("*** Begin Patch"):
raise DiffError("Patch text must start with *** Begin Patch")
paths = identify_files_needed(text)
orig = load_files(paths, open_fn)
patch, _fuzz = text_to_patch(text, orig)
commit = patch_to_commit(patch, orig)
apply_commit(commit, write_fn, remove_fn)
return "Done!"

# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- #
# Default FS helpers
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- #
def open_file(path: str) -> str:
with open(path, "rt", encoding="utf-8") as fh:
return fh.read()

def write_file(path: str, content: str) -> None:

target = pathlib.Path(path)
target.parent.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)
with target.open("wt", encoding="utf-8") as fh:
fh.write(content)

def remove_file(path: str) -> None:

 pathlib.Path(path).unlink(missing_ok=True)

# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- #
# CLI entry-point
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- #
def main() -> None:
import sys

patch_text = sys.stdin.read()
if not patch_text:
print("Please pass patch text through stdin", file=sys.stderr)
return
try:
result = process_patch(patch_text, open_file, write_file,
remove_file)
except DiffError as exc:
print(exc, file=sys.stderr)
return
print(result)

if __name__ == "__main__":
main()

Other Effective Diff Formats

If you want to try using a different diff format, we found in testing that the SEARCH/REPLACE diff
format used in Aider’s polyglot benchmark, as well as a pseudo-XML format with no internal
escaping, both had high success rates.

These diff formats share two key aspects: (1) they do not use line numbers, and (2) they provide
both the exact code to be replaced, and the exact code with which to replace it, with clear
delimiters between the two.
In [3]:
SEARCH_REPLACE_DIFF_EXAMPLE = """
path/to/file.py
```
>>>>>>> SEARCH
def search():
pass
=======
def search():
raise NotImplementedError()
<<<<<<< REPLACE
"""

PSEUDO_XML_DIFF_EXAMPLE = """
<edit>
<file>
path/to/file.py
</file>
<old_code>
def search():
 pass
</old_code>
<new_code>
def search():
raise NotImplementedError()
</new_code>
</edit>
"""