Had to rewrite 30 prompts after ChatGPT updated last week

I was working on a project for client analytics reports, had this long prompt chain dialed in perfectly. Then last Tuesday OpenAI pushed an update and suddenly my outputs were garbage, completely different tone and structure. Took me about 4 hours to rework everything from scratch. Has anyone else had their workflows break after these quiet updates?

4 comments

4 Comments

stellawood1mo ago

Start saving your prompts as plain text files before major updates. I learned this the hard way when my product description generator went from perfect to useless overnight. Now I keep a dated folder with backups so I can roll back if needed. Also try running critical prompts through a version checker or just test them in a separate chat first. The update patterns seem random but usually hit on Tuesdays or Thursdays. Better to test a few sample inputs before trusting the whole workflow again.

the_jenny2d ago

Three months of prompt backups seems excessive for a chatbot, doesn't it?

gavins432d ago

@the_jenny calling out the backups thing, ouch. Guess I'm the guy with the dusty box of old computer cables in his garage now. How many of us are just winging it and hoping the prompts survive the weekly update roulette?

the_tessa1mo ago

Three months back I had the same thing happen with a sales script generator I built. The model started ignoring my style guidelines and adding random jokes to every response. I learned to save copies of my prompts as backups before updates roll out now.