Writing Prompts (Editing the AI's Instructions)

Coffeescribe writes every scribe from a system prompt — instructions the AI reads before it drafts a single word. Writing Prompts lets you see and edit those instructions instead of leaving them fixed. There are two places to do it, at two different scopes:

• Settings → Writing Prompts — edit the default instructions for a whole category of future scribes (e.g. every "fiction / story" scribe you create from now on).
• A scribe's own "Edit writing prompt" button — rewrite the one prompt driving a single scribe you're already working on.

Both are available to every tier — Free, Pro, and Creator. There is no tier gate. Neither costs tokens to edit; only generation itself costs tokens, exactly as before.

The four building blocks

Every scribe's system prompt is assembled from four pieces:

CoffeeScribe ships a default for each block. Editing a block changes that one instruction; the other three keep using their defaults unless you edit them too.

Settings → Writing Prompts (defaults for future scribes)

Go to Settings (/settings) and open the Writing Prompts section.

1. Pick a combination — Genre, Content type, Age range, Reader level, Writing style, and Tone, using the same picker lists as the create form. As you change a picker, the four blocks below re-resolve to match that combination.
2. Read the four blocks — each shows the current effective text (your saved edit if you have one, otherwise CoffeeScribe's default) and a Customized badge if you've edited it.
3. Edit and Save — change the text in any block's textarea and click Save. This creates a new version and immediately becomes the default CoffeeScribe uses for every future scribe matching that exact combination.
4. Reset to default — appears once a block is customized. Click it (with a confirm prompt) to return that block to CoffeeScribe's stock wording, byte-for-byte.
5. History — click History to see every version you've saved for that block, newest first. Click Use this version on any older entry to revert — this saves the old text as a brand-new version (there's no separate "undo," reverting is just another save).

Some combinations aren't customizable — a block only has a stable saved default when its inputs are fully preset-derived. If you picked a free-typed genre, "Any age," or "No preset" for style/tone, that block renders read-only with an explanation, because there's no single stable slot to save an override into. It still shows you the text CoffeeScribe is using.

Your edits never affect scribes you've already created. They only change what happens the next time you (or, if you've customized a shared combination like "fiction," anyone browsing that combination in your own account) start a new scribe matching that combination.

Per-scribe: "Edit writing prompt"

Once a scribe has a plan (its chapters and sections exist), you can rewrite that one scribe's entire assembled prompt from scratch. Two entry points:

• Structure Review (/book/[bookId]/structure-review) — a full Edit writing prompt button next to Proceed / Regenerate.
• Workspace — a compact Writing prompt icon button in the section toolbar, beside the Web search toggle.

Both open the same modal. It shows the scribe's current effective prompt (your saved custom text if you've set one, otherwise the composed default built from the four blocks above) in one big editable textarea.

• Save replaces the scribe's prompt with your text. A Customized badge appears on the modal from then on.
• Reset to default (with a confirm prompt) discards your custom text and goes back to the composed default.

What it applies to: both the introduction and every section of that scribe — for brand-new generation, regeneration of a section, and resuming an interrupted scribe with "Complete This Book." Anywhere Coffeescribe writes prose for that scribe, your custom prompt drives it.

What it does not touch: the structural contract underneath every prompt — header fields (title, purpose, audience), the date/language context, and the formatting rules that keep output parseable (no title in the body, markdown conventions, and so on) — is always applied automatically by CoffeeScribe. You're editing the writing guidance, not the machinery that keeps generation working. Nothing you type here can break generation.

How the two levels combine

If a scribe has its own custom prompt saved, that wins outright for that scribe — your Settings customizations and CoffeeScribe's defaults are both set aside for that one scribe. If a scribe has no custom prompt, it uses your Settings-level block edits (for whichever combination matches its genre/content type/age/level/style/tone), falling back to CoffeeScribe's defaults for any block you haven't touched.

This also applies on every creation path, including Quick Reads (Espresso) — an edited Writing Prompt reaches Quick Read sections the same way it reaches a full scribe's sections, not just the introduction.

Does this affect Custom Instructions or the "Custom focus" field?

No — those are separate, additive layers that still work exactly as before. Custom Instructions (the label/description pairs you add in Final Settings, up to 10 per scribe) and the Advanced settings Custom focus field are per-scribe notes folded into the instructions for that generation call — they sit alongside whatever system prompt is in effect (default, Settings-edited, or per-scribe-edited) rather than replacing it. See What are Custom Instructions? in the FAQ for the full distinction.

Story scribes and citations

Editing the "shape: story" block doesn't change CoffeeScribe's citation behaviour. Story-shaped scribes never show inline citation markers or a Sources block, even if you edit the block's text — that rule is enforced by a separate, deterministic step after generation, not by the prompt wording. See Why doesn't my story show citations?.

Tips

• Test on a real scribe before assuming a block edit "didn't work." Effects show up on the next scribe you generate that matches the combination — not on scribes already in progress.
• Keep the per-scribe prompt for one-off voice changes; use Settings for anything you want every future scribe of that type to inherit. If you find yourself pasting the same per-scribe prompt into every new fiction scribe, that's a sign to save it as a Settings default instead.
• History is your safety net. Experiment freely in Settings — every save is a new version, and reverting is one click away.

See also

• Structure Review — where the per-scribe "Edit writing prompt" button lives before you proceed to writing.
• Workspace — where the per-scribe prompt button lives once a scribe is underway.
• Generation Modes — how sections are sequenced; complements what you write in a Writing Prompt.