ChatGPT custom instructions examples for work, with a template

The template

Role and goal: I'm a [role] at [type of company]. A good answer
[what it lets me do].

Audience and tone: Usually read by [who]. [Tone rule]. [Tone rule].

Never, and instead: Never [risky thing]; instead, [what to do].

Format: Default to [length and shape].

Edge case: If I [common situation], [what to do].

Four examples

Illustrations: made-up roles and businesses.

A worked example: trimming a page of instructions

Illustration: a made-up business. Marta, an account manager, had a full page of custom instructions: her role, the company's product list, three client names with their quirks, a report template and twenty tone rules. Answers to unrelated questions kept mentioning her clients.

She cut it to the five parts in the first example above. The product list went into a project; each client's quirks went into that client's project; the report template became a skill. Her custom instructions dropped from 60 lines to 8, and a question about a spreadsheet formula no longer came back with a note about a client's delivery window.

Write yours

1. Copy the template and fill the five parts for your job.
2. Cut every line that isn't true in every chat; move it to a project or a skill.
3. Name the promise it must never make, and what to say instead.
4. Test it on three different requests: a reply, a summary, an unrelated question.
5. Add a rule only when a test fails, and keep the whole thing under 15 lines.

Not sure what belongs where? See custom instructions vs Projects vs skills.

Next step: one set of instructions for the team

Custom instructions are personal; they can't be shared. When the whole team should answer clients the same way, the shared part belongs where everyone's AI reads it: getting your team to use AI the same way covers that, and sharing ChatGPT custom instructions with a team covers the ChatGPT side.

Questions

What should I put in ChatGPT custom instructions for work?

Only what's true in every chat: your role and what a good answer does for you, who usually reads the output and the tone, what the AI must never do and what to do instead, the default format, and one edge case. Task rules, like a report template, belong in a project or a skill.

Can you give an example of custom instructions?

For an account manager: 'I manage 12 B2B clients for a packaging supplier; a good answer is ready to send to a client's buyer. Plain, warm, no exclamation marks. Never promise delivery dates; say I'll confirm with operations. Default to under 150 words with the ask in the last line. If I paste a complaint, draft the reply and list what to check first.'

Are custom instructions the same in Claude?

Claude's equivalent is profile preferences, which also apply to every chat. The same short shape works in both.