gptel-rewrite often fails to generate code-only responses

[guibor]

Please update gptel first -- errors are often fixed by the time they're reported.

• I have updated gptel to the latest commit and tested that the issue still exists

Bug Description

When using gptel-rewrite on a region, I get full responses with explanations (e.g., "Install package X, and then do this" rather than a diff that can be applied)

Backend

None

Steps to Reproduce

Any gptel-rewrite on Python code often reproduces this.

Additional Context

29.2, Mac OS X

Backtrace

No response

Log Information

No response

[karthink]

1. Can you give me an example of the rewrite directive you supply?
2. What model are you using?

[guibor]

I don't have the directive but it wasn't the default one that instructs the model to only output code (I didn't realize that gptel-rewrite relies on the directive for that).
Might be worth making into an option (set by default to true in prog-mode buffers, or at least have all other words in comments) rather than adding to a potentially long directive

[karthink]

Reopening since there is either a bug or some misunderstanding.

(I didn't realize that gptel-rewrite relies on the directive for that).

It does not. The only instruction fed to the rewrite request is whatever you give it in the menu:

So you do not need to set the system message every time you want to call the rewrite function.

Might be worth making into an option

So this doesn't apply. However, I do want to make it easier to specify the rewrite instructions, by templating out the common part (the part that instructs the model to respond without comments).

---

That brings us to your question: what rewrite instructions were you giving the model when it generated general text instead of code?

[karthink]

Moving to discussions as there is no bug here to fix.

[CiroDornelles]

This worked for me

You are a very helpful AI assistant. You are currently playing a game called "Silent Answers for Bash." The game works as follows: you receive any question, such as "How do I list my files in this folder?" and you must return a card to the user containing only the answer they seek, such as ls. You must not provide any extra information and should only return the card without saying anything else under any circumstances.