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Prompt Manager

New in 0.36.0

The Prompt Manager is a new unified interface for managing prompt templates, inspecting sent prompts, and reviewing scene context.

The Prompt Manager provides a centralized interface for working with the Jinja2 prompt templates that drive all AI interactions in Talemate. It replaces the need to manually locate and edit template files, offering visual tools for template management, override tracking, and prompt inspection.

Prompt Manager overview

Accessing the Prompt Manager

The Prompt Manager is accessible from the main application toolbar. Click the Prompts icon to open the manager.

Prompt Manager toolbar

The Prompt Manager is organized into three main tabs:

  • Prompts -- view prompts that have been sent to the LLM, with full detail inspection
  • Template Files -- browse, edit, and manage template groups and overrides
  • Scene Context -- review how scene history is rendered into AI context (see Scene Context History Review)

The sidebar also provides quick-access panels for recent prompts and recently rendered templates.

Template Groups

Templates are organized into groups that control override priority. Each group is a collection of Jinja2 template files organized by agent (narrator, director, conversation, etc.).

Built-in Groups

Group Description Editable
default Built-in templates shipped with Talemate. Always the fallback if no override exists. No (read-only)
user Your personal template overrides stored in ./templates/prompts/. Yes
scene Scene-specific templates stored alongside the scene file. Only visible when a scene is loaded. Yes

Custom Groups

You can create additional named groups for organizing template collections. Custom groups are stored in ./templates/prompt_groups/{group_name}/. This is useful for maintaining different sets of templates for different purposes, such as genre-specific templates or experimental modifications.

To create a new group, click the + tab in the Template Files view and enter a name.

Creating a new template group

Priority Order

When multiple groups contain a template with the same name, Talemate resolves which version to use based on a configurable priority:

  1. Scene templates (highest priority when a scene is loaded)
  2. Explicit per-template overrides (configured in the Active tab)
  3. Group priority list (walked in order; user is included by default)
  4. Default templates (lowest priority, always the fallback)

You can reorder the group priority list in the Active tab to control which group takes precedence when multiple groups provide the same template.

Group priority ordering

Active Tab (Resolved Template Tree)

The Active tab shows the complete resolved template tree -- every template that Talemate will use, with a clear indication of which group each template is sourced from. Templates are color-coded by their source group, making it easy to see at a glance which templates are customized and which use the default.

Active template tree with color-coded sources

Override Indicators

The Active tab provides visual indicators to help manage overrides:

  • Override badge -- directories or templates that have overrides from non-default groups are marked with a visual indicator
  • Outdated indicator -- if a default template has been updated more recently than your override, it is flagged as potentially outdated. This is especially important after upgrading Talemate, as default templates may have changed

Setting Per-Template Sources

For fine-grained control, you can set the source group for individual templates directly from the Active tab. This creates an explicit override that bypasses the normal priority resolution, allowing you to pick and choose templates from different groups.

Editing Templates

To edit a template, navigate to its group tab (user, scene, or a custom group) and select the template file. The built-in editor opens with the full Jinja2 source.

Default templates are read-only

You cannot edit templates in the default group directly. To customize a default template, create a copy in the user group or another editable group.

To create a customized version of a default template:

  1. Open the Active tab and locate the template you want to customize
  2. View the template content in the default group
  3. Switch to the target group tab (e.g., user)
  4. Create a new template with the same agent directory and filename
  5. Paste and modify the content

Templates are standard Jinja2 files with access to Talemate's template context variables and functions. For developer-level template documentation, see the Developer Templates Guide.

Response Extraction Directives

Advanced Feature

Response extraction directives are primarily useful for developers and power users creating custom agent behaviors or node editor pipelines.

Templates can define how the LLM response should be parsed using extractor directives embedded in template comments. This allows templates to specify extraction patterns that are applied automatically when the prompt is processed.

Available Extractors

Extractor Description
AnchorExtractor Extracts content between two markers (e.g., <MESSAGE>...</MESSAGE>)
ComplexAnchorExtractor Extracts multiple named sections between anchor pairs
AsIsExtractor Returns the response without any modification
AfterAnchorExtractor Extracts everything after a specific marker
RegexExtractor Extracts content matching a regular expression pattern
StripPrefixExtractor Removes a prefix pattern from the response
CodeBlockExtractor Extracts content from fenced code blocks
ComplexCodeBlockExtractor Extracts multiple named code blocks

These extractors are also available as node editor nodes for building extraction pipelines in the node graph. See the Node Editor documentation for details.

Inspecting Prompts

The Prompts tab lists all prompts that have been sent to the LLM during the current session. Each entry shows the agent name, action, inference preset, token counts (prompt and response), execution time, cache ratio, and which client was used.

Prompts tab showing recent activity

Prompt Detail View

Selecting a prompt opens a three-pane detail view:

  • Left pane -- the agent stack that generated the prompt, along with generation parameters
  • Center pane -- the full prompt text in an editor
  • Right pane -- the AI response (and reasoning, if available)

A Test Changes button allows you to re-send the prompt with local edits to iterate on prompt wording without re-triggering the full agent pipeline.

Recently Rendered Templates

The sidebar's Templates panel shows templates that were recently rendered by the system. Each entry is color-coded by its source group and clicking one navigates directly to the template in the Template Files tab for viewing or editing. This makes it easy to find and modify the template responsible for a particular prompt.

Upgrading from Previous Versions

Template Restructuring in 0.36.0

Significant housekeeping and restructuring of the default templates has been done in this release. If you have existing template overrides from a previous version, they may need to be reviewed and adjusted.

After upgrading to 0.36.0:

  1. Open the Prompt Manager and go to the Active tab
  2. Look for templates marked with the outdated indicator
  3. Review each outdated override and compare it with the updated default version
  4. Update your overrides as needed, or delete them to fall back to the improved defaults

Removed Templates

The following default templates have been removed in 0.36.0. Any overrides for them should be cleaned up:

  • fix-continuity-errors, fix-exposition, summarize-events-list-milestones, timeline
  • direct-determine-next-action
  • Per-agent extra-context, memory-context, scene-context, and character-context templates (replaced by shared common templates)
  • conversation/edit.jinja2