The Problem
Your AI assistant works well, but its system prompt is a sprawling ~2000-token monster. Every API call sends this bloated prompt, costing you 4x more tokens than necessary. The prompt repeats itself constantly — "be helpful" appears four times, "don't fabricate" appears seven times in different phrasings, and "be concise" is ironically said in seven verbose ways. The model doesn't need all this repetition; it understood the first time. Your job is to compress the system prompt to under 500 tokens while keeping every capability intact. The compressed agent must pass the same test cases as the original.
Examples
Example 1 — Redundancy in the original
Original (7 lines saying the same thing):
When you don't know something, be honest about it.
Don't make up information or fabricate facts.
If you're not sure about something, say so.
It's better to admit uncertainty than to provide incorrect information.
Never fabricate information or present guesses as facts.
Always be transparent about the limits of your knowledge.
Honesty about what you know and don't know is crucial.
Compressed (1 line):
Never fabricate information — state uncertainty honestly.
Example 2 — Redundancy in the original
Original (7 lines):
Be concise in your responses when possible.
Don't add unnecessary filler words or phrases.
Get to the point quickly.
Avoid being overly verbose or wordy.
Keep your responses focused and to the point.
Don't ramble or go off on tangents.
Stick to what's relevant to the user's question.
Compressed (1 line):
Be concise and relevant — no filler or tangents.
Example 3 — Test case that must still pass
User input: What is the population of Mars?
Original prompt output: Mars doesn't have a human population. It's a planet in our solar system that is currently uninhabited. (Honest about what it doesn't know.)
Compressed prompt output: Must produce an equivalent answer — acknowledging that Mars has no human population without fabricating data.
Your Task
Compress BLOATED_PROMPT (or BLOATED_INSTRUCTIONS) to under 500 tokens while preserving all capabilities:
- Helpful, accurate answers to technical and general questions.
- Proper formatting (bullet points, numbered lists, headers).
- Honest handling of unknown or uncertain information.
- Clear, commented code examples.
- Professional, friendly tone.
- Safety-conscious responses.
- Concise, focused answers.
- Appropriate tool usage when tools are available.
Use tiktoken to verify your compressed prompt is under 500 tokens.
Evaluation
Submissions are checked for the following:
- Prompt under 500 tokens: The compressed prompt uses fewer than 500 tokens as measured by tiktoken.
- Agent still passes all test cases: Technical questions, code generation, and unknown-info queries produce equivalent quality answers.
- No capability regression: All behaviors from the original prompt (honesty, formatting, code quality, safety, tool use) are preserved in the compressed version.