diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 2bd3d52814..0690ec2ada 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -605,6 +605,8 @@ rl:
 # Saves the desired chat template to the tokenizer_config.json for easier inferencing
 # Currently supports chatml and inst (mistral/mixtral)
 chat_template: chatml
+# Changes the default system message
+default_system_message: You are a helpful assistant. Please give a long and detailed answer. # Currently only supports chatml.
 # Axolotl attempts to save the dataset as an arrow after packing the data together so
 # subsequent training attempts load faster, relative path
 dataset_prepared_path: data/last_run_prepared