xAI Official Developer Documentation: Basic Prompts and Parameter Settings for Grok 4.6

Official example prompt

xAI's documentation uses the following code-fixing example to demonstrate the basic way to call Grok 4.6:

Find and fix the bug, then explain it: function median(a){a.sort();return a[a.length/2]}

The prompt's structure is simple, but it contains three explicit actions: find the problem, fix the problem, and explain the problem. The example code itself has potential issues, including a missing sort comparator and an undefined rule for even-length inputs, making it suitable for checking whether the model examines edge cases rather than merely rewriting the syntax.

Official parameter information

• Model name: grok-4.6

• Context window: 500,000 tokens

• Reasoning levels: low, medium, high (default), and xhigh

• APIs: Responses API, Chat Completions

• Tools: function calling, web search, X search, code execution

• Input/output pricing: $2 / $6 per million tokens

Usage recommendations from the official documentation

• The Responses API recommends setting prompt_cache_key; Chat Completions can use x-grok-conv-id to route the same conversation to the same server where possible, improving cache-hit rates.

• Long Agent loops can be paired with context compaction to prevent the context from growing continuously.

• Tasks with frequent tool calls should use function calling rather than having the model guess tool parameters in natural language.

Reusable prompt template

You are a senior [ROLE].
Goal: [ONE CONCRETE OUTCOME].
Context: [RELEVANT CODE, DATA, OR LINKS].
Constraints: [STACK, BOUNDARIES, THINGS NOT TO INVENT].
Done means: [NUMBERED ACCEPTANCE CRITERIA].
Return: [EXACT OUTPUT FORMAT].
Before finishing, verify [TESTS, EDGE CASES, OR EXTERNAL FACTS].

This template is a working template organized around the calling capabilities described in the official documentation; it is not a verbatim excerpt from xAI's documentation.