claude code & --system-prompt override

[charger89]

The docs instruct us to set system prompt for claude code to increase adherence to serena usage:

claude --system-prompt="$(serena prompts print-cc-system-prompt-override)"

Is this safe to replace the entire system prompt? Why not use --append-system-prompt? Is there any difference?

Or better yet -- why not use our global CLAUDE.md?

[MischaPanch]

This instruction is from the Opus 4.8 times and corresponding versions of claude code, where claude just plain refused to adhere to instructions unless forced in this brutish way. Alignment to instructions has since improved, both Opus 5 and Fable can use Serena much better even without the system prompt override.

We did some prompt tuning generally and wanted to merge it soonish with updated instructions in our docs but didn't get to that yet. Hooks will also have to be revisited in that context. For now, you can consider our recommendation on system prompts stale but we have no "official" new recommendation yet

[charger89]

Thanks for the answer. Just to be clear, did Serena project try utilizing claude.md first, but it yielded poorer results than sys prompt?

[MischaPanch]

Yes, for the opus 4.8 period the full override was the only thing that worked and we tried everything else we could think of