Overview
The Instructions class represents secondary LLM instructions (e.g., system prompts) that extend BasePrompt with formatting and equality semantics.
Description
Instructions is a subclass of BasePrompt designed to represent secondary instructions passed to an LLM. Different models use these differently; for example, chat models typically receive instructions via the system prompt. The class overrides __repr__ to display a truncated representation prefixed with "Instructions(", implements __eq__ for source-based equality comparison, and provides a concrete format method that substitutes only the keyword arguments whose names appear as template variables in the source string. The format method returns a new Instructions instance with the substituted content.
Usage
Use this class when constructing system-level or secondary instructions for LLM calls within the Guardrails framework. It is typically instantiated from RAIL specifications or programmatically when building guard configurations that include separate system instructions.
Code Reference
Source Location
- Repository: Guardrails
- File:
guardrails/prompt/instructions.py
Signature
class Instructions(BasePrompt):
def __repr__(self) -> str
def __eq__(self, __value: object) -> bool
def format(self, **kwargs) -> "Instructions"
Import
from guardrails.prompt.instructions import Instructions
# or
from guardrails.prompt import Instructions
I/O Contract
__init__ (inherited from BasePrompt)
| Parameter |
Type |
Description
|
source |
str |
The raw instructions template string
|
output_schema |
Optional[str] |
JSON Schema string to substitute into $output_schema placeholder
|
xml_output_schema |
Optional[str] |
XML Schema string to substitute into $xml_output_schema placeholder (keyword-only)
|
format
| Parameter |
Type |
Description
|
**kwargs |
Any |
Keyword arguments to substitute into the template; only keys matching template variables are used
|
| Returns |
Type |
Description
|
| Formatted instructions |
Instructions |
A new Instructions instance with template variables substituted
|
__eq__
| Parameter |
Type |
Description
|
__value |
object |
The object to compare against
|
| Returns |
Type |
Description
|
| Equality result |
bool |
True if __value is an Instructions instance with the same source string
|
Usage Examples
from guardrails.prompt.instructions import Instructions
# Create instructions with template variables
instructions = Instructions(
source="You are a helpful assistant. Your task is to ${task}. "
"Respond in ${language}."
)
# Format with keyword arguments
formatted = instructions.format(task="extract entities", language="English")
print(formatted.source)
# "You are a helpful assistant. Your task is extract entities. Respond in English."
# Equality check
instr_a = Instructions(source="Be concise.")
instr_b = Instructions(source="Be concise.")
assert instr_a == instr_b # True
# Representation
print(repr(instructions))
# Instructions(You are a helpful assistant. Your task is to ...)
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