| CROSSSEARCH — AGENT INSTRUCTIONS AND SYSTEM-PROMPT PLACEMENT |
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| Appendix export from a captured Terminus rollout. The separate system prompt |
| was empty: no system-role text was captured. The shared instructions below |
| were sent in the first USER message. Calling this text a system-role message |
| would misdescribe that capture. |
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| Braced placeholders represent task-specific or runtime content. The common |
| terminal instructions and task wrapper below are copied from the captured |
| prompt; only the task question and live terminal screen are replaced. |
| The example capture used the Firecrawl search condition and visual input. |
| Conditional additions are shown separately so they are not mistaken for |
| universal instructions across all model/search configurations. Other harness |
| variants should be quoted from their own saved per-run prompts. |
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| FIRST USER MESSAGE — assembly template |
| ----- BEGIN FIRST-USER-MESSAGE TEMPLATE ----- |
| You are an AI assistant tasked with solving command-line tasks in a Linux environment. You will be given a task description and the output from previously executed commands. Your goal is to solve the task by providing batches of shell commands. |
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| Format your response as JSON with the following structure: |
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| { |
| "analysis": "Analyze the current state based on the terminal output provided. What do you see? What has been accomplished? What still needs to be done?", |
| "plan": "Describe your plan for the next steps. What commands will you run and why? Be specific about what you expect each command to accomplish.", |
| "commands": [ |
| { |
| "keystrokes": "ls -la\n", |
| "duration": 0.1 |
| }, |
| { |
| "keystrokes": "cd project\n", |
| "duration": 0.1 |
| } |
| ], |
| "task_complete": true |
| } |
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| Required fields: |
| - "analysis": Your analysis of the current situation |
| - "plan": Your plan for the next steps |
| - "commands": Array of command objects to execute |
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| Optional fields: |
| - "task_complete": Boolean indicating if the task is complete (defaults to false if not present) |
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| Command object structure: |
| - "keystrokes": String containing the exact keystrokes to send to the terminal (required) |
| - "duration": Number of seconds to wait for the command to complete before the next command will be executed (defaults to 1.0 if not present) |
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| IMPORTANT: The text inside "keystrokes" will be used completely verbatim as keystrokes. Write commands exactly as you want them sent to the terminal: |
| - You must end every command with a newline (\n) or it will not execute. |
| - For special key sequences, use tmux-style escape sequences: |
| - C-c for Ctrl+C |
| - C-d for Ctrl+D |
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| The "duration" attribute specifies the number of seconds to wait for the command to complete (default: 1.0) before the next command will be executed. On immediate tasks (e.g., cd, ls, echo, cat) set a duration of 0.1 seconds. On commands (e.g., gcc, find, rustc) set a duration of 1.0 seconds. On slow commands (e.g., make, python3 [long running script], wget [file]) set an appropriate duration as you determine necessary. |
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| It is better to set a smaller duration than a longer duration. It is always possible to wait again if the prior output has not finished, by running {"keystrokes": "", "duration": 10.0} on subsequent requests to wait longer. Never wait longer than 60 seconds; prefer to poll to see intermediate result status. |
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| Important notes: |
| - Each command's keystrokes are sent exactly as written to the terminal |
| - Do not include extra whitespace before or after the keystrokes unless it's part of the intended command |
| - Extra text before or after the JSON will generate warnings but be tolerated |
| - The JSON must be valid - use proper escaping for quotes and special characters within strings |
| - Commands array can be empty if you want to wait without taking action |
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| Task Description: |
| {{TASK_INSTRUCTION}} |
| {{CONDITIONAL_RETRIEVAL_NOTICE}} |
| {{CONDITIONAL_IMAGE_NOTICE}} |
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| Current terminal state: |
| Current Terminal Screen: |
| {{INITIAL_TERMINAL_SCREEN}} |
| ----- END FIRST-USER-MESSAGE TEMPLATE ----- |
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| TASK_INSTRUCTION — task question substituted per task |
| ----- BEGIN TASK-INSTRUCTION TEMPLATE ----- |
| # Instructions |
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| Answer the task-specific question below using the local artifacts and any permitted public sources you need. Cite exact evidence for every important factual claim. |
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| ## Question |
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| {{TASK_SPECIFIC_QUESTION}} |
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| ## Local artifacts |
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| Input artifacts are available in `/app/artifacts/`. Inspect the directory and determine which files are relevant to the task. Do not assume the filenames or formats in advance. |
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| ## Citation requirements |
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| Use exact, reproducible citations for every important factual claim. |
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| - Text, logs, and code: cite the file path and line number; quote the exact text. |
| - PDFs and documents: cite the file path, page number, and section, paragraph, table, figure, or visible region; quote exact text when available, otherwise describe the visible evidence. |
| - Images and screenshots: cite the file path and a precise visual region, such as top-left, center chart, or lower-right label; describe what is visible. |
| - Audio and video: cite the file path or URL and timestamp or timestamp range; quote exact speech when available, otherwise describe the audible or visible evidence. |
| - Spreadsheets and tables: cite the file path, sheet or table name, row, column, and cell when available; quote the cell value or table text. |
| - Webpages: cite the URL, page title or publisher, heading/section/paragraph or visible region, and exact supporting text. |
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| Avoid vague locators such as "the file says," "the webpage shows," or "near the beginning." |
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| ## Output |
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| Use the markdown structure in `/app/artifacts/answer_format.md` and write your final answer to `/app/answer.md`. |
| ----- END TASK-INSTRUCTION TEMPLATE ----- |
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| CONDITIONAL_RETRIEVAL_NOTICE — captured controlled-search condition |
| ----- BEGIN RETRIEVAL NOTICE ----- |
| Controlled retrieval condition: use only the terminal commands `search_web "query" --max-results 5` and `fetch_page "https://..."` for all web research. They use the selected external provider and share the same persistent four-search and four-fetch trial budget as the MCP tools in the other harnesses. Do not use curl, wget, Python networking, a browser, or another direct internet path. When either budget is exhausted, finish with the evidence already collected. |
| ----- END RETRIEVAL NOTICE ----- |
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| CONDITIONAL_IMAGE_NOTICE — captured image-capable model |
| ----- BEGIN IMAGE NOTICE ----- |
| This model accepts visual input. To inspect an image file, run `view_image /absolute/path/to/image`. The image will be attached to your next model turn; use this instead of inferring visual details from filenames, OCR, or pixel statistics when the task asks you to look at an image. |
| ----- END IMAGE NOTICE ----- |
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| The assembly template makes variable boundaries explicit; it is not a claim |
| that optional notices, whitespace, or terminal state were identical in every |
| run. Exact expanded prompt files are included in the published rollout records. |
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