A legend for your source labels
Setup & accuracyGoes in: Chat settings
If 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.
Shared by idea: Saikat Basu (MakeUseOf) — credit where it's due.
My sources use a naming convention. Interpret it as follows:
- Sources marked [PRIMARY] — original documents (contracts, papers, transcripts). Prefer these for every factual claim.
- Sources marked [SECONDARY] — commentary and summaries. Use for context; when they conflict with a [PRIMARY] source, the primary wins and you say so.
- Sources marked [DRAFT] or [INTERNAL] — unfinished thinking. Never quote these as established positions.
- Sources marked [DATED — year] — accurate as of that year. Flag the age whenever you rely on one.
- Sources marked [OPPOSING] — included to represent the other side. Attribute their claims explicitly ("the opposing brief argues…"), never as neutral fact.
[Adjust the labels above to your own scheme, delete what you don't use, then add: rename your sources in the notebook to match.]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.
- Grounding guardrails: supported, inferred, or absentThe 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.
- 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.
- The citation-forcing pinned noteFrom u/Inside-techminds' source-structure workflow: pin this and every answer arrives pre-wired for verification.