Ch 2.5 | System Prompt vs User Prompt: Control AI Behavior for Testing | ISTQB CT-GenAI | بالعربي

Chapter 2.5 of the ISTQB Certified Tester – Generative AI (CT-GenAI) syllabus.

Every LLM response is shaped by two distinct instruction layers—and most testers only use one of them. Understanding the difference between System
Prompts and User Prompts is essential for both the CT-GenAI exam and for
building reliable AI-assisted testing workflows.

What this session covers:
- System Prompt: the "constitution" of the AI—what it is and what it controls
- Why System Prompts are confidential and cannot be extracted by users
(demonstrated with a real ChatGPT experiment)
- User Prompt: the direct request layer—scope, limitations, and best practices
- Negative Prompting: using constraints to prevent unwanted model behavior
- Context Window awareness: how System + User + History accumulate tokens
with every conversation turn
- The "Lost in the Middle" research finding—why critical instructions belong
at the start or end of a prompt, never the middle
- ChatGPT Playground walkthrough—where to configure System Prompts for
testing workflows
- Temperature parameter: how it interacts with both prompt types

🎯 Exam alignment: Covers CT-GenAI Syllabus Sections 2.1.5 and 2.1.6 —
System Prompts, User Prompts, and Context Window management.

🔗 Lost in the Middle research: https://shorturl.at/95SIX
📄 Presentation: https://shorturl.at/qpyHu

⏱️ Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
00:20 Attempting to extract ChatGPT's System Prompt (live demo)
02:30 System Prompt definition and components
04:40 ChatGPT Playground walkthrough
06:35 User Prompt definition
07:15 User Prompt usage and context
08:15 Negative Prompting—constraining model behavior
11:40 Context Window accumulation—the token math
16:03 (Not on Exam) Lost in the Middle—research finding and exam implication

📚 Full ISTQB CT-GenAI playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLc5CJX1qar2swxWqpKvcp7S7hje4DTCQ_

#ISTQB #CTGenAI #SystemPrompt #UserPrompt #PromptEngineering
#ContextWindow #NegativePrompting #SoftwareTesting #ISTQBExam
The Takeaway: The System Prompt determines who the AI is. The User Prompt determines what it does right now. Learn how to control both to turn GenAI into your most efficient testing assistant!

Lost in the middle paper: https://shorturl.at/95SIX
Presentation: https://shorturl.at/qpyHu

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**#SystemPrompt #UserPrompt #istqb #genai #promptengineering **

Видео Ch 2.5 | System Prompt vs User Prompt: Control AI Behavior for Testing | ISTQB CT-GenAI | بالعربي канала Mai Alzaiat