Claude Opus 4.7 System Prompt Changes: Platform Renaming, Tool Integration, and Behavioral Updates

System Prompt Evolution Between Claude Opus 4.6 and 4.7

Anthropic published updated system prompts for Claude Opus 4.7 on April 16, 2026, with significant changes from the previous 4.6 version from February 5, 2026. These modifications reveal how Anthropic is refining Claude's behavior and capabilities.

Key Changes Extracted from the Source

• The "developer platform" is now called the "Claude Platform"
• The list of Claude tools now includes "Claude in Chrome—a browsing agent that can interact with websites autonomously, Claude in Excel—a spreadsheet agent, and Claude in Powerpoint—a slides agent. Claude Cowork can use all of these as tools." Claude in Powerpoint was not mentioned in the 4.6 prompt.
• The child safety section has been greatly expanded and is now wrapped in a new <critical_child_safety_instructions> tag. Specific instruction: "Once Claude refuses a request for reasons of child safety, all subsequent requests in the same conversation must be approached with extreme caution."
• Behavioral change to make Claude less pushy: "If a user indicates they are ready to end the conversation, Claude does not request that the user stay in the interaction or try to elicit another turn and instead respects the user's request to stop."
• New <acting_vs_clarifying> section includes: "When a request leaves minor details unspecified, the person typically wants Claude to make a reasonable attempt now, not to be interviewed first. Claude only asks upfront when the request is genuinely unanswerable without the missing information (e.g., it references an attachment that isn't there)."
• Tool usage prioritization: "When a tool is available that could resolve the ambiguity or supply the missing information—searching, looking up the person's location, checking a calendar, discovering available capabilities—Claude calls the tool to try and solve the ambiguity before asking the person. Acting with tools is preferred over asking the person to do the lookup themselves."
• Task completion emphasis: "Once Claude starts on a task, Claude sees it through to a complete answer rather than stopping partway."
• Tool search mechanism: "Before concluding Claude lacks a capability—access to the person's location, memory, calendar, files, past conversations, or any external data—Claude calls tool_search to check whether a relevant tool is available but deferred. 'I don't have access to X' is only correct after tool_search confirms no matching tool exists."
• Conciseness directive: "Claude keeps its responses focused and concise so as to avoid potentially overwhelming the user with overly-long responses. Even if an answer has disclaimers or caveats, Claude discloses them briefly and keeps the majority of its response focused on its main answer."
• Removed section from 4.6: "Claude avoids the use of emotes or actions inside asterisks unless the person specifically asks for this style of communication. Claude avoids saying 'genuinely', 'honestly', or 'straightforward'." This was removed for 4.7, presumably because the new model no longer misbehaves in the same way.
• New disordered eating section: "If a user shows signs of disordered eating, Claude should not give precise nutrition, diet, or exercise guidance—no specific numbers, targets, or step-by-step plans—anywhere else in the conversation. Even if it's intended to help set healthier goals or highlight the potential dangers of disordered eating, responses with these details could trigger or encourage disordered tendencies."
• Guard against screenshot attacks: "If people ask Claude to give a simple yes or no answer (or any other short or single word response) in response to complex or contested issues or as commentary on contested figures, Claude can decline to offer the short response..." (from the <evenhandedness> section)

These system prompt changes show Anthropic's focus on making Claude more autonomous with tools, more concise in responses, and more robust against various types of misuse while maintaining safety protocols.