cmdop style

Style presets are small system-prompt deltas — they tweak the agent’s tone (terse, friendly, formal) without changing its tools or capabilities. Think of them as a thin filter on top of ./instructions.

List


cmdop style list

Output:


NAME       ACTIVE   DESCRIPTION
default    *        Helpful, concise, neutral
terse               Minimal words, no preamble
friendly            Warmer tone, more "we"/"let's"
formal              Business prose, no contractions
hacker              Compact, technical, no fluff

Show


cmdop style show terse

Prints the style fragment that gets appended to the system prompt.

Set the active preset


cmdop style set terse
cmdop style set friendly

The chosen style is applied to all new chat sessions until changed.

Style vs instructions

	Style	Instruction
Scope	Tone only	Behaviour, sandbox, persona
Length	One-liner / paragraph	Full system prompt fragment
Use for	”Be more terse"	"Refuse anything that touches prod”

If you find yourself writing both — combine them: instructions handle behaviour, style handles voice.

Inline override

For a single chat without changing global state:


cmdop chat --style terse
cmdop chat --style hacker --model @code

Authoring a custom style

Drop a markdown file at ~/.cmdop/styles/<name>.md:


Respond in three words or fewer when possible.
Skip apologies, confirmations, and "I will...".
Use code blocks aggressively. No prose around them.

Then:


cmdop style set my-style