Prompts

keep uses three families of prompt docs, all stored under .prompt/:

Family	IDs	Used by
`.prompt/summarize/`	`default`, `conversation`, ...	`keep put` (summarization)
`.prompt/analyze/`	`default`, `conversation`, ...	`keep analyze` (decomposition)
`.prompt/agent/`	`reflect`, `query`, `conversation`, `session-start`, ...	`keep prompt` CLI and `keep_prompt` MCP tool

Summarize and analyze prompts replace the LLM system prompt for their respective operations. Agent prompts are rendered with context injection and returned as text — see KEEP-PROMPT.md for the CLI and KEEP-MCP.md for the MCP tool.

Summarize and analyze prompts

Each summarize/analyze prompt doc has two parts:

Match rules — tag queries that determine when this prompt applies (same DSL as .meta/* docs)
## Prompt section — the actual system prompt text sent to the LLM

When a document is summarized or analyzed, keep scans the matching .prompt/{type}/ docs, finds those whose match rules match the document's tags, and selects the most specific match (most rules matched). The ## Prompt section from the winner replaces the default system prompt.

Bundled

ID	Match rule	Purpose
`.prompt/summarize/default`	(none — fallback)	Default summarization prompt
`.prompt/summarize/conversation`	`type=conversation`	Preserves dates, names, facts from conversations
`.prompt/analyze/default`	(none — fallback)	Default analysis prompt for structural decomposition
`.prompt/analyze/conversation`	`type=conversation`	Fact extraction from conversations

Creating custom prompts

Create a new prompt doc with match rules targeting specific tags:

# Custom summarization for code documentation
keep put "$(cat <<'EOF'
topic=code

## Prompt

Summarize this code documentation in under 200 words.
Focus on: what the API does, key parameters, return values, and common pitfalls.
Begin with the function or class name.
EOF
)" --id .prompt/summarize/code

Match rules can combine multiple tags for higher specificity:

# Prompt for meeting notes in a specific project
keep put "$(cat <<'EOF'
type=meeting project=myapp

## Prompt

Summarize this meeting in under 300 words.
Focus on decisions made, action items assigned, and deadlines mentioned.
List each action item with its owner.
EOF
)" --id .prompt/summarize/myapp-meetings

The most specific match wins — a prompt matching type=meeting project=myapp (2 rules) beats one matching just type=meeting (1 rule), which beats the default (0 rules).

Agent prompts

Agent prompts live at .prompt/agent/ and contain template placeholders ({get}, {find}, {text}) that are expanded with store context at render time. They are returned as text for the calling agent to follow — not sent to an LLM as a system prompt.

keep prompt reflect                      # Render the reflect prompt
keep prompt reflect "auth flow"          # With search context injected
keep prompt --list                       # List available agent prompts

See KEEP-PROMPT.md for full usage and template placeholders.

Viewing prompt docs

keep get .prompt/summarize/default       # See a summarize/analyze prompt
keep get .prompt/agent/reflect           # See an agent prompt
keep list .prompt                        # All prompt docs