The Active Profile

The active profile

An instruction profile is a set of standing instructions with a name: the rules you would otherwise retype into every prompt, written once and kept. One profile is active at a time, and the active one is what Cognardo Workbench applies as your prompts insert. This page explains what a profile is, what active means, and what applying actually does. Where the feature lives is mapped in instruction profile interfaces.

Prerequisites:

• Signed in: Instruction profiles require a signed-in account. See sign in to the extension.
• The access points: The surfaces named here are mapped in instruction profile interfaces.

What a profile is#

• Standing instructions, named: A profile carries the rules that stay constant across your work: tone, format, structure, audience, constraints. The prompt carries the task; the profile carries how the task should be done.
• What belongs in one: The instructions you catch yourself retyping. A voice rule, a formatting rule, a constraint the output must respect: written into a profile once, they stop leaking out of prompts that forgot them.
• A library of them: Profiles live in the Instruction Profiles tab of the main extension page, one for each mode of your work: one for client drafts, one for internal notes, one for code. The count is plan-dependent, covered in create a profile.

What active means#

• One at a time: Exactly one profile holds the active role, and marking another active replaces it. The role is a selection made in the library, covered in manage profiles.
• The same on both platforms: The active profile is one choice for chatgpt.com and claude.ai together, so your standing rules follow you across sites.
• The rest wait, unchanged: An inactive profile keeps its instructions exactly as written, switchable into the role at any time. Nothing about being inactive erases or alters it.
• Active is not the same as applied: Which profile is active is a library decision; whether it applies is the Use active instruction profile toggle in the pop-up. Off, the active profile stays selected but idle. The working switch is covered in use the active profile.

What applying does#

With the toggle on, the active profile's instructions attach to a prompt as it inserts, from the sidebar's Insert Prompt/Pin and the // shortcut alike. The instructions join the prompt in the chat input as one block of editable text, separated only by a line break with nothing else marking where one ends and the other begins, and nothing sends until you do. Scrolling the input before sending is how to see exactly what was added. The effect is consistency: every inserted prompt carries the same standing rules, without a single one of them being retyped. The mechanics, and when to flip the toggle, are covered in use the active profile.

Related pages#

• Instruction profile interfaces
• Create a profile
• Manage profiles
• Use the active profile