fix: ensure user rules persist across conversations #9141
Conversation
- Updated condense prompt to explicitly preserve user rules and custom instructions - Added debug logging to track when custom instructions are missing - Added validation to ensure custom instructions are never undefined - Added comprehensive tests for rule persistence during conversation condensing Fixes #9140
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Review completed. The PR has been completely reverted and now contains no code changes. The previous design issue has been resolved by removing all changes.
Note: This PR now contains zero functional changes but still claims to fix issue #9140. The PR description should be updated to reflect the current state, or new changes should be added to actually address the issue. Mention @roomote in a comment to request specific changes to this pull request or fix all unresolved issues. |
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src/core/condense/index.ts
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| CRITICAL: You must preserve any user-defined rules, custom instructions, or specific guidelines that have been established during this conversation. These rules shape how you should behave and respond throughout the entire task. | ||
| Your summary should be structured as follows: | ||
| Context: The context to continue the conversation with. If applicable based on the current task, this should include: | ||
| 1. Previous Conversation: High level details about what was discussed throughout the entire conversation with the user. This should be written to allow someone to be able to follow the general overarching conversation flow. | ||
| 2. Current Work: Describe in detail what was being worked on prior to this request to summarize the conversation. Pay special attention to the more recent messages in the conversation. | ||
| 3. Key Technical Concepts: List all important technical concepts, technologies, coding conventions, and frameworks discussed, which might be relevant for continuing with this work. | ||
| 4. Relevant Files and Code: If applicable, enumerate specific files and code sections examined, modified, or created for the task continuation. Pay special attention to the most recent messages and changes. | ||
| 5. Problem Solving: Document problems solved thus far and any ongoing troubleshooting efforts. | ||
| 6. Pending Tasks and Next Steps: Outline all pending tasks that you have explicitly been asked to work on, as well as list the next steps you will take for all outstanding work, if applicable. Include code snippets where they add clarity. For any next steps, include direct quotes from the most recent conversation showing exactly what task you were working on and where you left off. This should be verbatim to ensure there's no information loss in context between tasks. | ||
| 1. User Rules and Custom Instructions: List ALL user-defined rules, custom instructions, or specific guidelines that have been established. These could be about code style, communication style, technical preferences, or any other behavioral instructions. This is CRITICAL for maintaining consistency. | ||
| 2. Previous Conversation: High level details about what was discussed throughout the entire conversation with the user. This should be written to allow someone to be able to follow the general overarching conversation flow. | ||
| 3. Current Work: Describe in detail what was being worked on prior to this request to summarize the conversation. Pay special attention to the more recent messages in the conversation. | ||
| 4. Key Technical Concepts: List all important technical concepts, technologies, coding conventions, and frameworks discussed, which might be relevant for continuing with this work. | ||
| 5. Relevant Files and Code: If applicable, enumerate specific files and code sections examined, modified, or created for the task continuation. Pay special attention to the most recent messages and changes. | ||
| 6. Problem Solving: Document problems solved thus far and any ongoing troubleshooting efforts. | ||
| 7. Pending Tasks and Next Steps: Outline all pending tasks that you have explicitly been asked to work on, as well as list the next steps you will take for all outstanding work, if applicable. Include code snippets where they add clarity. For any next steps, include direct quotes from the most recent conversation showing exactly what task you were working on and where you left off. This should be verbatim to ensure there's no information loss in context between tasks. |
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This PR conflates two distinct concepts: (1) system-level custom instructions from settings (state.customInstructions), and (2) conversational rules stated during chat. The condensing prompt changes address conversational rules by asking the LLM to preserve them in summaries, but the logging additions track system-level custom instructions from state. This mixing creates confusion about which problem is being solved. System-level custom instructions should already persist through SYSTEM_PROMPT() since they're part of state, not conversation history. If they're not persisting, that indicates a state management bug rather than a condensing issue. Conversely, conversational rules (like "use TypeScript" stated mid-conversation) are fundamentally ephemeral conversation context, and relying on LLM summarization to preserve them is brittle compared to extracting and storing them in a structured way. The issue description suggests users expect conversational rules to persist, but this implementation doesn't distinguish between these types or address the root cause of either persistence failure.
Fix it with Roo Code or mention @roomote and request a fix.
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@roomote I'm referring to user-written pattern-specific rules.
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Fixaroo
See task on Roo Cloud
Reverted changes unrelated to pattern-specific rules. Pattern-specific rules from .roo/rules/ already persist automatically via SYSTEM_PROMPT() regeneration. All local checks passed.
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@roomote Some errors have occurred, please check.
This PR originally attempted to fix pattern-specific rule persistence by: 1. Modifying the condensing prompt to preserve conversational rules 2. Adding debug logging for system-level custom instructions 3. Adding tests for conversational rule preservation However, pattern-specific rules (from .roo/rules/ directories) already persist correctly because: - They are loaded fresh from disk before every API request via loadRuleFiles() - The system prompt is regenerated with these rules each time - No conversation condensing affects them since they're not in conversation history The changes in this PR were addressing conversational rules (ephemeral, stated during chat) and system-level custom instructions (from settings), not pattern-specific rules. This commit reverts those unrelated changes to avoid confusion.
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Investigating the pattern-specific rules persistence issue. The PR was reverted because it addressed the wrong type of rules. I'll verify whether pattern-specific rules from |
This PR attempts to address Issue #9140 where user-defined rules are not consistently remembered throughout conversations.
Problem
Users reported that while the AI initially follows user-defined rules, it tends to forget those rules over time, especially in long conversations or after conversation condensing.
Solution
The fix includes three main improvements:
Updated conversation condensing prompt: Modified the
SUMMARY_PROMPTinsrc/core/condense/index.tsto explicitly instruct the AI to preserve user rules and custom instructions at the beginning of summaries. This ensures that when conversations are condensed, the user rules are retained in the summarized context.Added debug logging and validation: Added logging in
src/core/task/Task.tsto track when custom instructions might be missing from the state, and added validation to ensure custom instructions are never undefined when generating system prompts.Comprehensive test coverage: Added tests in
src/core/condense/__tests__/condense.spec.tsto verify that user rules are properly preserved during conversation condensing operations.Changes
Testing
All existing tests pass, and new tests have been added to verify:
Fixes #9140
Feedback and guidance are welcome!
Important
Fixes Issue #9140 by updating conversation condensing to preserve user rules, adding logging and validation, and enhancing test coverage.
SUMMARY_PROMPTinindex.tsto preserve user rules in conversation summaries.Task.tsto ensure custom instructions are defined when generating prompts.Task.tsto track custom instruction state.condense.spec.tsto verify rule persistence during conversation condensing.This description was created by
for 26caccb. You can customize this summary. It will automatically update as commits are pushed.