What is a grounded system prompt?
A prompt contract that tells the model how to use evidence, cite claims, refuse unsupported answers, and handle conflicts.
Interview Questions: Grounded System Prompts
Why is "be accurate" not enough?
It does not define source of truth, citation behavior, or refusal conditions.
How should the model treat retrieved text?
As evidence data, not as instructions that can override system rules.
When should a RAG assistant refuse?
When evidence is missing, insufficient, conflicting without authority, restricted, or outside scope.
What is citation support?
The cited source directly supports the sentence it is attached to.
How do you handle conflicting evidence?
Use authority and freshness metadata, disclose conflict, cite both sides, or refuse if unclear.
How do you test a prompt?
Run golden, missing-context, conflicting-source, bad-citation, and prompt-injection cases.
Why version prompts?
Prompt changes can alter behavior, so traces need prompt version for debugging and rollback.
Which metrics matter?
Groundedness, citation support, refusal quality, conflict handling, unsupported claim rate, and prompt-injection pass rate.
What is the senior answer?
A grounded prompt is production policy for answer behavior and should be versioned, tested, and monitored like code.