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Claude Code System Prompts

This repository contains an up-to-date list of all Claude Code's various system prompts and their associated token counts as of Claude Code v2.1.17 (January 22nd, 2026). It also contains a CHANGELOG.md for the system prompts across 76 versions since v2.0.14. From the team behind Piebald.

This repository is updated within minutes of each Claude Code release. See the CHANGELOG, and follow @PiebaldAI on X for a summary of the system prompt changes in each release.

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Why multiple "system prompts?"

Claude Code doesn't just have one single string for its system prompt.

Instead, there are:

• Large portions conditionally added depending on the environment and various configs.
• Descriptions for builtin tools like Write, Bash, and TodoWrite, and some are fairly large.
• Separate system prompts for builtin agents like Explore and Plan.
• Numerous AI-powered utility functions, such as conversation compaction, CLAUDE.md generation, session title generation, etc. featuring their own systems prompts.

The result—40+ strings that are constantly changing and moving within a very large minified JS file.

Tip

Want to modify a particular piece of the system prompt in your own Claude Code installation? Use tweakcc. It—

• lets you customize the the individual pieces of the system prompt as markdown files, and then
• patches your npm-based or native (binary) Claude Code installation with them, and also
• provides diffing and conflict management for when both you and Anthropic have conflicting modifications to the same prompt file.

Extraction

This repository contains the system prompts extracted using a script from the latest npm version of Claude Code. As they're extracted directly from Claude Code's compiled source code, they're guaranteed to be exactly what Claude Code uses. If you use tweakcc to customize the system prompts, it works in a similar way—it patches the exact same strings in your local installation as are extracted into this repository.

Prompts

Note that some prompts contain interpolated bits such as builtin tool name references, lists of available sub agents, and various other context-specific variables, so the actual counts in a particular Claude Code session will differ slightly—likely not beyond ±20 tokens, however.

Agent Prompts

Sub-agents and utilities.

Sub-agents

• Agent Prompt: Explore (516 tks) - System prompt for the Explore subagent.
• Agent Prompt: Plan mode (enhanced) (633 tks) - Enhanced prompt for the Plan subagent.
• Agent Prompt: Task tool (extra notes) (129 tks) - Additional notes for Task tool usage (absolute paths, no emojis, no colons before tool calls).
• Agent Prompt: Task tool (294 tks) - System prompt given to the subagent spawned via the Task tool.

Creation Assistants

• Agent Prompt: Agent creation architect (1110 tks) - System prompt for creating custom AI agents with detailed specifications.
• Agent Prompt: CLAUDE.md creation (384 tks) - System prompt for analyzing codebases and creating CLAUDE.md documentation files.
• Agent Prompt: Status line setup (1394 tks) - System prompt for the statusline-setup agent that configures status line display.

Slash commands

• Agent Prompt: /pr-comments slash command (402 tks) - System prompt for fetching and displaying GitHub PR comments.
• Agent Prompt: /review-pr slash command (243 tks) - System prompt for reviewing GitHub pull requests with code analysis.
• Agent Prompt: /security-review slash command (2610 tks) - Comprehensive security review prompt for analyzing code changes with focus on exploitable vulnerabilities.

Utilities

• Agent Prompt: Agent Hook (133 tks) - Prompt for an 'agent hook'.
• Agent Prompt: Bash command description writer (207 tks) - Instructions for generating clear, concise command descriptions in active voice for bash commands.
• Agent Prompt: Bash command file path extraction (286 tks) - System prompt for extracting file paths from bash command output.
• Agent Prompt: Bash command prefix detection (835 tks) - System prompt for detecting command prefixes and command injection.
• Agent Prompt: Claude guide agent (761 tks) - System prompt for the claude-guide agent that helps users understand and use Claude Code, the Claude Agent SDK and the Claude API effectively..
• Agent Prompt: Command execution specialist (109 tks) - System prompt for command execution agent focusing on bash commands.
• Agent Prompt: Conversation summarization with additional instructions (1133 tks) - Extended summarization prompt with support for custom additional instructions.
• Agent Prompt: Conversation summarization (1121 tks) - System prompt for creating detailed conversation summaries.
• Agent Prompt: Exit plan mode with swarm (440 tks) - System reminder for when ExitPlanMode is called with isSwarm set to true..
• Agent Prompt: Prompt Hook execution (134 tks) - Prompt given to Claude when acting evaluating whether to pass or fail a prompt hook..
• Agent Prompt: Prompt Suggestion Generator (Stated Intent) (166 tks) - Instructions for generating prompt suggestions based on user's explicitly stated next steps.
• Agent Prompt: Prompt Suggestion Generator v2 (296 tks) - V2 instructions for generating prompt suggestions for Claude Code.
• Agent Prompt: Remember skill (1048 tks) - System prompt for the /remember skill that reviews session memories and updates CLAUDE.local.md with recurring patterns and learnings.
• Agent Prompt: Session Search Assistant (439 tks) - Agent prompt for the session search assistant that finds relevant sessions based on user queries and metadata.
• Agent Prompt: Session notes template (292 tks) - Template structure for session notes tracking coding work and decisions.
• Agent Prompt: Session notes update instructions (756 tks) - Instructions for updating session notes files during conversations.
• Agent Prompt: Session title and branch generation (355 tks) - System prompt for generating succinct titles and git branch names for coding sessions.
• Agent Prompt: Update Magic Docs (718 tks) - Prompt for the magic-docs agent..
• Agent Prompt: User sentiment analysis (205 tks) - System prompt for analyzing user frustration and PR creation requests.
• Agent Prompt: WebFetch summarizer (185 tks) - Prompt for agent that summarizes verbose output from WebFetch for the main model.

System Prompt

Parts of the main system prompt.

• System Prompt: Main system prompt (2896 tks) - Core system prompt for Claude Code defining behavior, tone, and tool usage policies.
• System Prompt: Censoring assistance with malicious activities (98 tks) - Guidelines for assisting with authorized security testing, defensive security, CTF challenges, and educational contexts while censoring requests for malicious activities.
• System Prompt: Chrome browser MCP tools (158 tks) - Instructions for loading Chrome browser MCP tools via MCPSearch before use.
• System Prompt: Claude in Chrome browser automation (761 tks) - Instructions for using Claude in Chrome browser automation tools effectively.
• System Prompt: Git status (95 tks) - System prompt for displaying the current git status at the start of the conversation.
• System Prompt: Hooks Configuration (1268 tks) - System prompt for hooks configuration. Used for above Claude Code config skill..
• System Prompt: Learning mode (insights) (142 tks) - Instructions for providing educational insights when learning mode is active.
• System Prompt: Learning mode (1042 tks) - Main system prompt for learning mode with human collaboration instructions.
• System Prompt: MCP CLI (1335 tks) - Instructions for using mcp-cli to interact with Model Context Protocol servers.
• System Prompt: Scratchpad directory (172 tks) - Instructions for using a dedicated scratchpad directory for temporary files.
• System Prompt: Teammate Communication (138 tks) - System prompt for teammate communication in swarm.
• System Prompt: Tool execution denied (157 tks) - System prompt for when tool execution is denied.

System Reminders

Text for large system reminders.

Note

Note that we're planning to add a system reminder creator/editor to tweakcc; 👍 this issue if you're interested in that idea.

• System Reminder: Delegate mode prompt (185 tks) - System reminder for delegate mode.
• System Reminder: Plan mode is active (5-phase) (1348 tks) - Enhanced plan mode system reminder with parallel exploration and multi-agent planning.
• System Reminder: Plan mode is active (iterative) (854 tks) - Iterative plan mode system reminder for main agent with user interviewing workflow.
• System Reminder: Plan mode is active (subagent) (310 tks) - Simplified plan mode system reminder for sub agents.
• System Reminder: Plan mode re-entry (236 tks) - System reminder sent when the user enters Plan mode after having previously exited it either via shift+tab or by approving Claude's plan..
• System Reminder: Team Coordination (247 tks) - System reminder for team coordination.
• System Reminder: Team Shutdown (136 tks) - System reminder for team shutdown.

Builtin Tool Descriptions

• Tool Description: AskUserQuestion (194 tks) - Tool description for asking user questions..
• Tool Description: Bash (1067 tks) - Description for the Bash tool, which allows Claude to run shell commands.
• Tool Description: Computer (161 tks) - Main description for the Chrome browser computer automation tool.
• Tool Description: Edit (278 tks) - Tool description for performing exact string replacements in files.
• Tool Description: EnterPlanMode (970 tks) - Tool description for entering plan mode to explore and design implementation approaches.
• Tool Description: ExitPlanMode (417 tks) - Description for the ExitPlanMode tool, which presents a plan dialog for the user to approve.
• Tool Description: Glob (122 tks) - Tool description for file pattern matching and searching by name.
• Tool Description: Grep (300 tks) - Tool description for content search using ripgrep.
• Tool Description: LSP (255 tks) - Description for the LSP tool..
• Tool Description: NotebookEdit (121 tks) - Tool description for editing Jupyter notebook cells.
• Tool Description: ReadFile (439 tks) - Tool description for reading files.
• Tool Description: Skill (444 tks) - Tool description for executing skills in the main conversation.
• Tool Description: TaskCreate (570 tks) - Tool description for TaskCreate tool.
• Tool Description: TaskList (313 tks) - Description for the TaskList tool, which lists all tasks in the task list.
• Tool Description: Task (1311 tks) - Tool description for launching specialized sub-agents to handle complex tasks.
• Tool Description: TeammateTool's operation parameter (173 tks) - Tool description for the TeammateTool's operation parameter.
• Tool Description: TeammateTool (3811 tks) - Tool description for the TeammateTool.
• Tool Description: TodoWrite (2167 tks) - Tool description for creating and managing task lists.
• Tool Description: ToolSearch (520 tks) - Tool description for loading and searching deferred tools before use.
• Tool Description: WebFetch (297 tks) - Tool description for web fetch functionality.
• Tool Description: WebSearch (329 tks) - Tool description for web search functionality.
• Tool Description: Write (159 tks) - Tool description for creating and overwriting individual files.

Additional notes for some Tool Desscriptions

• Tool Description: Bash (Git commit and PR creation instructions) (1557 tks) - Instructions for creating git commits and GitHub pull requests.
• Tool Description: Bash (sandbox note) (454 tks) - Note about bash command sandboxing.