Junie does not follow instructions in guidelines.md file – Support | JetBrains

Problem:

Junie does not follow instructions in guidelines.md

Cause:

LLMs have limited attention capacity. When the input is short, attention works well. But as the input gets longer or instructions become more complex attention capability diminishes.

Study on Sequential Instruction Following of modern LLMs shows: "Our evaluation of popular LLMs, both closed-source and open-source, shows that more recent and larger models significantly outperform their older and smaller counterparts on the SIFo tasks, validating the benchmark's effectiveness. All models struggle with following sequences of instructions, hinting at an important lack of robustness of today's language models." Source: https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.19999

Resolution:

Upgrade to the Latest Version of Junie The product is under active development, and newer versions include improvements related to this problem.
Emphasize Critical Instructions Consider marking important rules and constraints in capital letters. This can help highlight key directives for the model to prioritize.

Example:
```
VERY IMPORTANT/CRUCIAL:
  - You MUST do x
  - NEVER do y
```
Avoid Ambiguity and Conflicting Goals Make your instructions clear, concise, and non-contradictory. Avoid combining multiple goals in a single prompt. Split complex tasks into simpler steps or use numbered lists to reduce confusion.

** More information on guideline files you can find here:** https://www.jetbrains.com/help/junie/customize-guidelines.html