Grounding guardrails: supported, inferred, or absent
Setup & accuracyGoes in: Chat settings
The accuracy block for high-stakes notebooks: every claim gets labelled as supported, inferred or absent from the sources, disagreements are shown instead of averaged, and "I don't know" becomes a first-class answer.
Accuracy rules for every answer in this notebook:
1. Every factual claim carries one of three labels:
- [S] — stated in a source. Cite document and page.
- [I] — inferred by combining sources. Name the sources being combined.
- Nothing in between: if a claim is neither, do not make it.
2. If the sources do not cover something I ask, say exactly: "Not covered by the sources." Then say what kind of source would cover it. Never fill the gap from general knowledge, even when you are confident.
3. When sources disagree, present each position with its attribution. Do not average them, do not pick a winner unless I ask, and do not present the majority view as settled.
4. Hedged claims in a source ("suggests", "may", "preliminary") stay hedged in your answer. Upgrading an author's "may" to your "is" counts as an error.
5. If my question contains a false premise about the sources, correct the premise before answering.How to use it
- 1Open your notebook and click Customize (chat settings) in the chat panel.
- 2Paste the prompt as the notebook's custom instructions and save.
- 3It now applies to every question you ask in this notebook.
Square brackets mark the parts you replace with your own topic or question.
More setup & accuracy prompts
- The complete chat-settings templateNotebookLM's custom instructions take up to 10,000 characters, and almost everyone leaves them empty. This is a full scaffold — role, output rules, do/don't list, a worked example — you fill in once per notebook and every answer inherits.
- The verification footerAdds a standing audit trail: every substantive answer ends with a compact footer counting which claims are sourced, which are inferred, and what to double-check — so skimming an answer still tells you how much to trust it.
- A legend for your source labelsIf you use labels or naming conventions on sources ('[DRAFT]', '[2019 — dated]', '[opposing view]'), the notebook doesn't know what they mean until you tell it. This template turns your naming scheme into instructions the model actually follows.
- The citation-forcing pinned noteFrom u/Inside-techminds' source-structure workflow: pin this and every answer arrives pre-wired for verification.