Workspace instructions

Workspace instructions tell AI how to work with you. Think of them as the onboarding doc you’d give a new assistant on their first day: who you are, what goes where, and how you like things written. Banter’s assistant reads them before acting, and so does any AI you connect over MCP.

Choose the scope the instructions belong to:

• Workspace instructions — apply everywhere. Click your avatar at the bottom of the left rail and choose Workspace instructions.
• Folder instructions — rules for one folder. In a folder that already has instructions, click Folder instructions beside Today to open or close the inline editor. To add the first instructions, ask the assistant, for example: “Set the instructions for /Work/Acme: keep account notes concise and always include owners and next steps.” Apply the proposed change if your review settings require it; the shortcut then appears.
• Organization instructions — guidance for an organization in People. Open the organization’s menu and choose Organization instructions.

Edit instructions in the same rich editor used for notes; direct edits save automatically and can sync after you reconnect. When reviewing an assistant proposal, your changes remain part of that proposal until you apply it. Keep durable preferences here, rather than meeting notes or temporary tasks.

If an instruction review reports a partially applied batch, Dismiss remaining leaves the successful changes in place; it does not undo them.

What to write

Keep it short and concrete:

• Who you are and what you use Banter for
• Where important things live (“customer work goes under /Work, one folder per company”)
• How you like notes written (“short bullets, keep names, dates, owners, and next steps”)
• Standing rules (“when summarizing customer calls, always pull out pain points and next steps”)

A starter template

# About me
- Name: …
- Role / company: …
- I use Banter for: customer calls, project notes, follow-ups

# How I like notes
- Short bullets over long paragraphs
- Always keep dates, names, owners, and next steps
- Don't invent details that aren't in the source

# Where things go
- Customer work: /Work/<company>, one folder per company
- Meeting notes are named after the meeting ("Discovery call", "Security review")

Folder instructions

A folder’s instructions guide work involving that folder and its descendants. The /Work/Acme folder can say “this account is in a security review; always check the latest call before answering,” and only Acme conversations carry that rule.

When an AI enters a folder, it gets the folder’s instructions automatically — yours plus any parent folders’.

What good instructions look like

• “File sales notes under /Work by company name.” ✅ — concrete, checkable
• “When drafting follow-ups, write in my voice: short, direct, no exclamation marks.” ✅
• “Make everything good.” ❌ — nothing can follow this
• Ten paragraphs of biography ❌ — burying the rules

Start with five lines. Add a rule each time an AI does something you’d have done differently — that’s the maintenance loop, and it compounds.