The chat role for whatever the end user supplies, such as a question or an image, in contrast to the persistent instructions held in the system message.
Also called user prompt.
Read more: Microsoft Learn
In the Ultra Transcenders books
Each book explains User message in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.
Terms in this definition
- Role
How an actor normally or expectedly behaves, or the part a person takes in a process. A single actor may hold more than one role.
- Chat message roles
Labels on chat messages: instructions go under system, the person's input under user, the model's previous answers under assistant, and results returned by a called tool under tool (or function).
- Agent instructions
System message of an agent defining its role, objectives, tone and boundaries; it also steers, though not deterministically, when tools get called.
Related terms
- input_text
The Responses API content item that holds the prompt text in its
textfield. A single user message can combine it withinput_imageitems.