npcpy-prompting

npcpy-prompting

npcpy LLM prompting and JSON formatting patterns.

Imports

Always import at module level:

• from npcpy.llm_funcs import get_llm_response
• from npcpy.npc_compiler import NPC
• from npcpy.gen.response import get_litellm_response (only for streaming)

Basic-Call

get_llm_response(prompt, model, provider, **kwargs) — first arg is POSITIONAL. Do NOT write prompt=prompt. Do NOT use NPC.call(). The function is module-level.

Json-Mode

Pass format="json" for structured output. npcpy parses internally. Access via response["response"]. Never call json.loads() manually.

Npc-Object

Create an NPC to hold model, provider, and primary_directive. Pass it as npc=npc_instance so npcpy reads those values:

npc = NPC(name="...", primary_directive="...", model="...", provider="...")
response = get_llm_response(prompt, npc=npc, format="json", temperature=0.7)
data = response["response"]

Messages

Pass conversation history as messages=[{"role": "system", "content": msg}]. This is a kwarg like any other. It does not persist between calls.

Parameters

Sampling kwargs to get_llm_response:

• temperature, top_p, top_k, max_tokens
• stream=True returns a generator in response["response"]

Streaming

For token-level streaming use get_litellm_response with stream=True. For segment-level use get_llm_response(..., stream=True) and iterate response["response"].

Anti-Patterns

• Do NOT use json.loads(response["response"]).
• Do NOT call response.get("response") and then parse it again.
• Do NOT assume response is a string when format="json" is used.

Prompt-Formatting

When constructing prompt strings in Python:

• Use f"""...""" for all multiline prompts. Do NOT use implicit string concatenation.
• Do NOT put multiline strings directly in a return statement. Assign to a variable first, then return it.
• The closing """ must be at the same indentation as the variable assignment.
• Do NOT escape braces as {{ inside f-strings. If you need literal curly braces in the prompt output, use explicit string concatenation:

  prompt = f"""Write a JSON response like this:""" + """\n{'key': 'value'}\n"""
  

• Never use f"..." f"..." on adjacent lines or in parentheses expecting the parser to concatenate them.