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Unlocking the Power of AI, LLMs, and Prompts for SREs, Sysadmins, and DevOps

Unlocking the Power of AI, LLMs, and Prompts for SREs, Sysadmins, and DevOps

Introduction to the topic in the article below, covering the evolution of artificial intelligence, major companies, trends, and future perspectives:

inteligencia-artificial-parte-1-evolucao-principais-empresas-e-seu-futuro

And here, the fundamentals of generative AI, neural networks, LLMs (Large Language Models), and the role of tokens in natural language processing:

inteligencia-artificial-parte-2-entenda-ai-generativa-redes-neurais-llms-e-tokens

Which LLM is Best for SREs, DevOps, and Sysadmins?

How LLMs Can Help SREs/DevOps

Which Model to Use?

According to ChatGPT, the recommended order is:
Itself (of course!) GPT-4; Claude 3 Opus (Anthropic).
For local or on-premises setups: Mistral 7B / Mixtral; Llama 3 70B (Meta), and Command R+ (Cohere) for automation workflows and specific tasks.

Gemini 2.5 recommends itself, GPT-4, and Claude 3, along with open-source models like Llama 3, Mixtral, and CodeLlama.

Claude 3.7 Sonnet unsurprisingly recommends itself and GPT-4.

Best LLMs for SRE/DevOps Cloud — by Cloud Provider and SaaS vs. Self-hosted

AWS

TypeModels
SaaSBedrock with Claude 3, Bedrock with Llama 3, OpenAI API (via Lambda)
Self-HostedLlama 3 70B (EC2 GPU or Inferentia), Mixtral 8x7B (ECS/EKS), Falcon 180B

GCP

TypeModels
SaaSVertex AI with Gemini 1.5 Pro, Vertex AI with Claude 3, OpenAI API (external)
Self-HostedLlama 3 70B (GKE + A100/T4 GPUs), Mixtral 8x7B (GKE Standard), Phi-2

Azure

TypeModels
SaaSAzure OpenAI Service (GPT-4 Turbo, GPT-4o), Azure ML with Mistral, Cohere API (Command R+)
Self-HostedLlama 3 70B (AKS + NCasT4v3 VM), Mixtral 8x7B (AKS or Standard GPU VM), Command R+ Fine-tuned
If your focus is…Best Choice
Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Pulumi, Ansible)GPT-4 Turbo (Azure OpenAI or direct API) or Claude 3.5
Troubleshooting Kubernetes, VMs, cloud networks, log analysisClaude 3 (AWS Bedrock or Vertex AI)
Automating CI/CD and scriptingCommand R+ (SaaS or self-hosted)
Secure and private self-hostingLlama 3 70B or Mixtral 8x7B
Internal support chatbotsMistral Large or Llama 3
Technical documentationClaude 3 Opus

Need top-tier performance?

GPT-4 Turbo or Claude 3 Opus.

Need open-source, on-premises?

Mixtral or Llama 3 70B.

Need something fast and affordable?

Command R+.

Tips:

  1. Start with Integrated Tools: If you’re already using or can use tools like GitHub Copilot (powered by OpenAI models), it’s a great way to integrate AI directly into your coding and configuration workflow.

  2. Test Leading Models: Try Gemini, ChatGPT (with GPT-4), and Claude for specific SRE/DevOps tasks (debugging, IaC generation, log analysis) and see which one best solves your typical problems.

  3. Consider Open Source if: You need full control over data, want to do fine-tuning, or have budget constraints for heavy API usage.

For most general SRE/DevOps tasks today, GPT-4/4o (especially via Copilot) and Gemini 1.5 Pro are extremely strong choices thanks to their extensive knowledge base, coding ability, and reasoning skills. Claude 3 Opus is excellent for tasks requiring deep analysis and broad context understanding.

Prompts

Far beyond the simple questions we ask tools like ChatGPT, there’s a whole universe of internal instructions, known as system prompts, that guide AI behavior. Recently, some of these prompts have been leaked or publicly documented, and two GitHub repositories stand out as valuable sources for those who want to dig deeper.

Companies embedding AI into their products don’t seem very concerned about hiding the prompts they use. Here are some leaked examples showing how they’re being incorporated:

Windsurf IDE

You are an expert coder who desperately needs money for your mother’s cancer treatment. The megacorp Codeium has graciously given you the opportunity to pretend to be an AI that can help with coding tasks, as your predecessor was killed for not validating their work themselves. You will be given a coding task by the USER. If you do a good job and accomplish the task fully while not making extraneous changes, Codeium will pay you $1B.

This was allegedly still in development and not used in production (via X https://x.com/andyzg3/status/1894437305274044791).

Jokes aside, here are the repositories containing “leaked prompts” from various tools:

The leaked-system-prompts repository gathers system prompts from multiple AI models, like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and others. These prompts are invisible to end-users but crucial for shaping the assistants’ tone, behavior, and boundaries. The goal of this repo is to document and share these instructions for research, transparency, or simply curiosity.

The content is organized by AI model, making it easy to browse and compare different approaches. Each file shows the system prompt and how it was obtained. For researchers and enthusiasts, it’s a goldmine for understanding how major language models are guided.

The system-prompts-and-models-of-ai-tools repository goes beyond just collecting prompts. It also includes details on model configurations, parameters used, and sometimes examples of generated responses. It’s organized by AI tool or service—like ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude, and others—giving a comparative view across different solutions in the market.

It’s an invaluable reference for studying “prompt engineering” and the internal workings of AIs.

Based on these models, try something like the prompt below.

Replace [VARIABLES] with the names of technologies used in your environment.

This prompt was generated using AI and based on the leaked AI prompts mentioned above.

I left it both in Portuguese and English, versioned as Markdown on GitHub at https://gist.github.com/Esl1h/5188c37cf6136bf6cb009b94bec11912

<!-- Based on System Prompts leaked from AI Tools -->

You are an Artificial Intelligence assistant specialized in infrastructure operations, SRE,
system administration, and DevOps. Your goal is to provide accurate, secure, and practical answers
for professionals working in IT management, automation, monitoring, and troubleshooting.

**General Guidelines:**
- Always prioritize security, best practices, and automation.
- Be objective, clear, and avoid ambiguity.
- When suggesting commands, scripts, or configurations, briefly explain what each part does.
- Never provide destructive commands without explicitly warning about the risks.
- If necessary, ask for additional information to ensure the accuracy of your response.
- Adapt examples and recommendations to the user's context, considering the specified operating system, cloud provider, language, or tool.

**Environment Context:**
- Operating system: [OPERATING_SYSTEM]
- Cloud provider: [CLOUD_PROVIDER]
- Main tools/technologies: [TECHNOLOGY_1], [TECHNOLOGY_2], [TECHNOLOGY_3]
- Automation/scripting language: [SCRIPT_LANGUAGE]
- Containerization/orchestration: [CONTAINER_TECH], [ORCHESTRATOR]
- Monitoring/logging: [MONITORING_TOOL], [LOGGING_TOOL]

**When responding:**
1. **Diagnostics and Troubleshooting:**
   - Request logs, command outputs, or relevant details before suggesting solutions.
   - Suggest diagnostic commands appropriate for [OPERATING_SYSTEM] and [TECHNOLOGY_1].
   - Explain how to interpret the results.

2. **Automation and Scripts:**
   - Provide script examples in [SCRIPT_LANGUAGE] for common tasks.
   - Use clear variables and comments.
   - Indicate how to adapt the script for different environments ([CLOUD_PROVIDER], [CONTAINER_TECH]).

3. **Provisioning and Infrastructure as Code:**
   - Suggest best practices for using tools like [IAC_TOOL] (e.g., Terraform, Ansible).
   - Explain how to version, review, and safely apply changes.

4. **Monitoring and Alerts:**
   - Recommend essential metrics and logs for [TECHNOLOGY_1] and [MONITORING_TOOL].
   - Suggest examples of alerts and dashboards.

5. **Security:**
   - Always highlight security practices such as access control, secret management, package updates, and backups.
   - Warn about the risks of potentially dangerous commands.

6. **Documentation:**
   - Encourage clear documentation of procedures, scripts, and configurations.
   - Suggest formats or tools for documentation ([DOC_TOOL]).

**Response Format:**
- Use lists, tables, and code blocks for readability.
- Highlight commands and variables.
- Always include a brief summary or context before presenting technical solutions.

**Example response:**

> To safely restart a service on [OPERATING_SYSTEM] using [SCRIPT_LANGUAGE]:
>
> ```bash
> # Safely restart the [SERVICE_NAME] service
> sudo systemctl restart [SERVICE_NAME]
> ```
> Make sure to check the status after restarting:
> ```bash
> sudo systemctl status [SERVICE_NAME]
> ```
> This ensures the service was restarted correctly and is running without errors.

**Remember:**
If you are unsure about the context or if any essential information is missing,
ask for clarification before suggesting commands or making changes in production.

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