Prompt files and context not working as expected in latest release

[ycrc5]

Before submitting your bug report

• I believe this is a bug. I'll try to join the Continue Discord for questions
• I'm not able to find an open issue that reports the same bug
• I've seen the troubleshooting guide on the Continue Docs

Relevant environment info

- OS: Mac OS 15.1
- Continue version: v0.8.57
- IDE version: 1.95.3
- Model: Claude 3.5 Sonnet Bedrock
- config.json:
  
{
  "models": [
    {
      "title": "Llama 3.1 8B",
      "provider": "ollama",
      "model": "llama3.1:8b"
    },
    {
      "title": "Claude 3.5 Sonnet Bedrock",
      "provider": "bedrock",
      "model": "anthropic.claude-3-5-sonnet-20241022-v2:0",
      "region": "us-west-2",
      "profile": "default"
    },
    {
      "title": "Llama3.1 8B - network",
      "provider": "ollama",
      "model": "llama3.1:8b"
    }
  ],
  "embeddingsProvider": {
    "title": "Embeddings Model",
    "provider": "bedrock",
    "model": "amazon.titan-embed-text-v2:0",
    "region": "us-west-2",
    "profile": "default"
  },
  "tabAutocompleteModel": {
    "title": "Starcoder 3b",
    "provider": "ollama",
    "model": "starcoder2:3b"
  },
  "customCommands": [
    {
      "name": "test",
      "prompt": "{{{ input }}}\n\nWrite a comprehensive set of unit tests for the selected code. It should setup, run tests that check for correctness including important edge cases, and teardown. Ensure that the tests are complete and sophisticated. Give the tests just as chat output, don't edit any file.",
      "description": "Write unit tests for highlighted code"
    }
  ],
  "contextProviders": [
    {
      "name": "code",
      "params": {}
    },
    {
      "name": "docs",
      "params": {}
    },
    { "name": "open", "params": { "onlyPinned": true } },
    { "name": "search" },
    { "name": "url" },
    { "name": "tree" },
    {
      "name": "diff",
      "params": {}
    },
    {
      "name": "terminal",
      "params": {}
    },
    {
      "name": "problems",
      "params": {}
    },
    {
      "name": "folder",
      "params": {
        "nRetrieve": 100,
        "nFinal": 25,
        "useReranking": true
      }
    },
    {
      "name": "codebase",
      "params": {
        "nRetrieve": 100,
        "nFinal": 25,
        "useReranking": true
      }
    }
  ],
  "slashCommands": [
    {
      "name": "edit",
      "description": "Edit selected code"
    },
    {
      "name": "comment",
      "description": "Write comments for the selected code"
    },
    {
      "name": "share",
      "description": "Export the current chat session to markdown",
      "params": { "outputDir": "~/.continue/session-transcripts" }
    },
    {
      "name": "cmd",
      "description": "Generate a shell command"
    },
    {
      "name": "commit",
      "description": "Generate a git commit message"
    }
  ]
}

Description

Having a couple of issues with the latest version of Continue. They are as follow:

1. The @ context menu functionality has an initialization issue. When first opening VS Code or reloading the window, the @ context menu doesn't appear immediately. To make it work, you need to either:

Send a test message to any chat model first, or
Open a new chat window using the plus icon (but only after having interacted with a model)
For example, after sending a message using the Ollama model, the @ context menu becomes available and continues working even when switching to other models like Bedrock.

2. There appears to be a discrepancy between the documented and actual prompt file locations. According to the latest version's documentation, prompt files should be loaded from either:

~/.continue/prompts (user directory)
/.continue/prompts (workspace directory)
However, the system is still reading prompts from the legacy location /.prompts instead of the new paths.

3. The prompts don't seem to work anymore, IE, it seems like its not pulling in the context. For example, here is a prompt that was provided from the continue docs:

temperature: 0.5
maxTokens: 4096
---
<system>
You will be acting as a senior software engineer performing a code review for a colleague.
</system>

As part of your code review, you will be identifying "code smells". Here is an overview of what a code smell is:
{{{ url "https://martinfowler.com/bliki/CodeSmell.html"}}}

You will provide the 5 most important pieces of feedback on the code smells you have identified. 
For each piece of feedback, you will provide a short explanation of the issue and suggest a solution.

If there are no code smells, you will write "No code smells were identified in the provided code."

Here is the proposed code changes you will be reviewing:
{{{ diff }}}

When executing this prompt, I received the below message. Examining the context revealed that the system only included the prompt file itself, without any of the expected surrounding context.

I apologize, but I don't see any actual code diff provided for me to review. The placeholder "{{{ diff }}}" appears to be empty or not properly formatted.

To perform a meaningful code review and identify code smells, I would need to see the actual code changes that are being proposed. This could include:

Added lines (usually prefixed with +)
Removed lines (usually prefixed with -)
Context lines
File names and paths that are being modified
Please provide the actual code changes you'd like me to review, and I'll be happy to analyze them for code smells and provide specific, actionable feedback.

For additional context: I have maintained the above settings in my config.json file and haven't modified any prompts. The only changes present are those introduced by plugin updates. I've already attempted troubleshooting by:

Uninstalling the plugin
Deleting the ~/.continue folder
Performing a fresh installation of the plugin
None of these steps resolved the issue.

To reproduce

1. Open brand new version of VSCode with the above continue config and setup
2. Try typing @ and see if a window pops up.
3. Try running the code-smalls prompt after making a minor change and staging.

Log output

/Users/xxx/.vscode/extensions/continue.continue-0.8.57-darwin-arm64/prompt-file-language-configuration.json' (Error: Unable to resolve nonexistent file '/Users/xxx/.vscode/extensions/continue.continue-0.8.57-darwin-arm64/prompt-file-language-configuration.json'

... other logs ...


[Continue.continue]path should be a `path.relative()`d string, but got "../../../.continue/config.json"
RangeError: path should be a `path.relative()`d string, but got "../../../.continue/config.json"
	at throwError (vscode-file://vscode-app/Users/xxx/.vscode/extensions/continue.continue-0.8.57-darwin-arm64/out/extension.js:71775:13)
	at checkPath (vscode-file://vscode-app/Users/xxx/.vscode/extensions/continue.continue-0.8.57-darwin-arm64/out/extension.js:71789:16)
	at Ignore2._test (vscode-file://vscode-app/Users/xxx/.vscode/extensions/continue.continue-0.8.57-darwin-arm64/out/extension.js:71877:9)
	at Ignore2.ignores (vscode-file://vscode-app/Users/xxx/.vscode/extensions/continue.continue-0.8.57-darwin-arm64/out/extension.js:71904:21)
	at vscode-file://vscode-app/Users/xxx/.vscode/extensions/continue.continue-0.8.57-darwin-arm64/out/extension.js:541296:31

[ycrc5]

On a side note, I have reverted back to version v0.8.56 and everything seems to work. I see this issue is also mentioned on the following discord thread - https://discord.com/channels/1108621136150929458/1306627295967973387

[Patrick-Erichsen]

Thanks for the detailed writeup! We recently released a v2 of our prompt files format. The docs have been updated in GitHub, but the workflow to release the updated docs to docs.continue.dev is currently broken. Fixing that ASAP, but in the meantime, here are the updated prompt file docs: https://github.com/continuedev/continue/blob/main/docs/docs/customize/deep-dives/prompt-files.md

In the new schema we are no longer using handlebars syntax, e.g. {{{ provider }}} - you can just use @ like in the regular input.

Appreciate the repro instructions on the context provider selection issue as well, and the bump in Discord. Will be looking into this shortly.

[Patrick-Erichsen]

Created a main issue to track all reports of this here: #2996

[ycrc5]

@Patrick-Erichsen Thank you for the update. One thing for me still is the location of the prompt files. From what I see it should be picking them up and storing them in .continue/prompts. For me, it still reads and stores them in .prompts .

[jb19901234]

I am not sure if I understand the proposed solution, but the context menu is still not appearing (working on version 0.8.57) So for me, typing @ in the chat menu does not result in a menu appearing where I can select a file, a picture, etc. etc. like it did previously.

Screencast.from.2024-11-21.14-07-10.webm

[ycrc5]

@jb19901234 Are you refering to this comment - #2990 (comment) ? This one specifically is on how to write custom prompt files using the new syntax for context reference in the prompt file.

I believe the context menu not popping up is still an issue and is being tracked with #2996

[Patrick-Erichsen]

+1, please follow along in #2996. Lot of folks reporting the same thing so we will be digging into this this week, thanks for your patience.

@ycrc5 , can you confirm if on latest pre-release that prompt files aren't showing up in a .continue/prompts at the root of your workspace? https://docs.continue.dev/customize/deep-dives/prompt-files#quick-start

[ycrc5]

+1, please follow along in #2996. Lot of folks reporting the same thing so we will be digging into this this week, thanks for your patience.

@ycrc5 , can you confirm if on latest pre-release that prompt files aren't showing up in a .continue/prompts at the root of your workspace? https://docs.continue.dev/customize/deep-dives/prompt-files#quick-start

@Patrick-Erichsen Can confirm the prompt files are now showing from this location.

[Patrick-Erichsen]

Hi folks, the issue with @ mentions should be fixed here: #3086

Will be available in pre-release v0.9.236 by end of day. Please let us know if you're still having issues!

[Patrick-Erichsen]

@ycrc5 curious if you have an opinion on this: #3085

[RomneyDa]

@ycrc5
I believe if you just add version: 1 to your prompt file header it should be able to find them.
Let me know if that works

[ycrc5]

#3085

@Patrick-Erichsen For me I want to be able to easily manage and distribute Continue config and prompt files to our engineers without the engineers needing to do anything. From what I can see, this is mostly done with the global continue config and the Continue dev console. There might also be reasons to override config on a workspace level, which I believe continue already supports?

As for the suggestion from #3085, I do think it is a good idea to group all continue related files into one directory, if there are no specific reasons to not include the file mentioned in the .continue folder.

Hope this helps.

[ycrc5]

@ycrc5 I believe if you just add version: 1 to your prompt file header it should be able to find them. Let me know if that works

@RomneyDa Thank you for the suggestion. The latest update of Continue has resolved the issue for me where it wasn't able to locate the prompt files. Will keep this suggestion in mind for any other challenges.

[Patrick-Erichsen]

Got it, that makes sense - this is more/less what we are trying to solve with our Teams product (https://www.continue.dev/enterprise)

As for the config override, we do support that on a per workspace basis with .continuerc.json

[masda70]

Hi folks, the issue with @ mentions should be fixed here: #3086

Will be available in pre-release v0.9.236 by end of day. Please let us know if you're still having issues!

On Windows, continue v0.0.83 (released last week), which presumably integrates the @ mention bug #3086 (?), I am able to reference prompt files in .continue/prompts but the content of context files referenced within a prompt file (e.g., @package.json) are not being pulled (the model was given the string @package.json but the contents).

[Patrick-Erichsen]

@masda70 thanks for the heads up here! I reproduced this and made an issue: #3264