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Prompts for this category — the four AI scripts behind every item

Open any menu category and scroll past the diner-facing description. You’ll see a small panel titled Prompts for this category, with four rows: Description writer · short blurb, Description writer · full description, Image generation, Image enhancement. Each row sits at Platform default out of the box, with a green Customize for this venue button next to it. The four prompts are the scripts the AI runs every time you ask it to write or draw something for an item in this category — they’re what makes a wine description sound like a wine description, and a pizza image look like a pizza image. This page explains what they are, why they’re there, and when (rarely) to touch them.

This page is for owners and head chefs who want to understand what the AI is doing under the hood, and what changes if you customize one of these prompts.

Why this page exists

The AI in this app doesn’t just know how to write a wine description or generate a pizza photo — it follows a script you can read and edit. When the AI writes the description for a glass of Sangiovese, it’s reading the Description writer · full description script attached to the Wines category. When the AI generates a photo of your Pasta Carbonara, it’s reading the Image generation script attached to the Pasta category. These scripts are called prompts; they’re the instructions the AI follows before it writes a single word or pixel.

We ship default prompts with the platform — the Platform default badge you see next to each row. They’ve been written and tested across hundreds of food and beverage categories so they sound right for most venues out of the box. The reason you see the panel at all is so you know:

  1. Which prompt is active right now — the row’s subtitle tells you (Beverage — short blurb, Vintage cookbook — beverage, etc.).
  2. Whether the prompt is the platform default or one you customized — the badge changes from Platform default to Yours when you override one for this venue.
  3. Where to customize one if the AI is consistently writing or drawing things that don’t match your house style.

In practice most venues never touch this panel. The platform defaults work. But the panel is there so when something does sound off (the AI keeps suggesting “buttery” notes on a wine that’s clearly tannic, or the image generator keeps drawing a sandwich when you wanted a pizza), you have a clear place to fix the script instead of fighting the AI item-by-item.

The rule

The four prompts are the script. Your venue’s AI context is the actor’s notes. The script is shared across every venue on the platform; your AI context (the textarea above the prompt panel) tells the actor how your venue wants the line delivered. Edit the AI context first. Only override the prompt itself when the script — not the delivery — is structurally wrong for your venue’s catalogue.

The four prompts, in plain English

PromptWhat the AI is doing when this runsWhen you’d customize it
Description writer · short blurbWriting the one-line description that fits under the dish name on the public menu and on the POS cashier screen. Typical output: “A bright Tuscan Sangiovese with cherry and leather notes — pour it with red sauce.”When the platform default reads too formal, too slangy, or includes vocabulary you’d never use (e.g. “elevated”, “curated”).
Description writer · full descriptionWriting the longer paragraph that fills the item detail page and shows up in the AI-driven menu chat. Reads more like a sommelier’s note.When the long-form descriptions need a specific structure your venue uses — e.g. always lead with origin, always end with a pairing suggestion.
Image generationDrawing the item’s photo from scratch when you don’t have one and click AI generate on the menu item editor. Style follows the prompt — “vintage cookbook”, “magazine editorial”, “phone photo on a wooden bar”, etc.When your venue has a strong visual identity (always overhead shots, always on white plates) and the default style fights you.
Image enhancementPolishing a photo you uploaded. Crops, lights, color-corrects without changing the food.Rarely — the default polish is conservative on purpose. Customize when you want a specific look (“warm tungsten”, “blown-out highlights”, etc.).

How the four prompts are picked

The panel header shows a chain at the right — Chain: beverage → general or Chain: pasta → food → general. The chain is the inheritance order the system walks when picking which prompt to run.

When you open an item in the Wines category and click AI write description, the system asks: do we have a prompt for “wine” specifically? If yes, use it. If not: do we have one for “beverage”? If yes, use it. If not: fall back to “general”. The chain is computed from the category’s categoryKind (set on the category itself) plus its categoryType (food or beverage). Most categories don’t need a dedicated prompt because the parent chain already sounds right — the Wines category in your menu is using the Beverage prompt, and the Beverage prompt is the one most carefully tuned by the platform.

Customizing a prompt at the category level plants a new step at the front of the chain just for this venue. So if you click Customize for this venue on the Description writer · short blurb row of the Wines category, then a venue-specific short blurb prompt for Wines exists from that moment on, and every wine item in your menu uses it — overriding the platform’s beverage default for your venue only. Other venues continue to use the platform default.

How to use the panel

Open the category. Scroll past the diner-facing description. Find Prompts for this category. For each row you want to inspect, click Customize for this venue. A side drawer opens with the platform-default prompt loaded as the starting point. Edit the text, save. The badge on the row flips from Platform default to Yours; the chain in the panel header shows a venue step prepended.

To roll back to the platform default, click the row’s Yours badge or open the customized prompt and use the Reset to platform default button. The venue-specific prompt is deleted; the chain falls back to the platform.

A customized prompt only applies to the venue you’re currently on. It doesn’t propagate to other venues if you run a group, and it doesn’t change the platform defaults for anyone else.

Worked example — Marco overrides the wine short blurb

Marco runs iO Osteria. The platform default for Description writer · short blurb on the Beverage chain produces lines like: “A bright, food-friendly red from the Tuscan hills — pair with anything tomato.” Fine, but Marco’s house style is unapologetically vintage-Italian — he wants every wine to lead with the producer’s town, not the region or the grape. “From Greve in Chianti, this Sangiovese drinks bigger than its eight-year-old self.”

He opens the Wines menu category in the admin, scrolls to Prompts for this category, clicks Customize for this venue on the Description writer · short blurb row. The drawer opens with the platform’s default prompt template — a paragraph of instructions ending in “the output should be one sentence, under 25 words, in a sommelier’s voice”.

Marco edits the prompt: he keeps the sentence-count and the sommelier voice, but adds: “Lead with the producer’s town when the wine carries it (Greve in Chianti, Montalcino, Bolgheri). Never lead with the grape variety.” Saves. The row badge flips to Yours.

The next time he asks the AI to write a short blurb for a Tuscan red, the output reads: “From Greve in Chianti, this Sangiovese drinks bigger than its eight-year-old self.” Every wine in the category uses the new script from that moment on.

Three months later he realises he wants every wine to also end with a pairing suggestion. He edits the prompt again, adds “End every blurb with a pairing suggestion from the food menu.”. Saves. From that day forward every short-blurb output ends with ”— try with the pappardelle al sugo.”

What you can change here, what you can’t

You can edit the prompt text, save it, see the chain pick up your version. You can reset to the platform default at any time. You can see which prompt fired (the Yours / Platform default badge tells you).

You cannot delete a prompt slot — the four are fixed slots the AI needs to do its job. You cannot create a new slot type (e.g. “rhyming menu mode”) — those are part of the platform schema.

If you find yourself wishing for a slot type that doesn’t exist, that’s a platform request — not a per-venue setting.