Personas & guidelines
Personas decide who you are in the scene; guidelines decide how the scene plays. Together they let you set the stage without rewriting it every time.
Personas — write as a character
A persona is the voice you speak in. Instead of replying as a generic “you,” you can step in as a named character with their own background and manner, and the cast will respond to that person. Set a persona once and it carries across the chat.
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A persona has a name, an optional title (a role or relationship), and a description of who you are.
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Pick a persona per chat from the chat settings — switch any time.
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Great for recurring characters you like to play, or for matching a specific story’s tone.
Create one with the assistant
You don’t have to write a persona from scratch. Open the persona creator (You → Personas → New persona) and tell the Persona Assistant who you want to be — it drafts the name, title, and description for you, and you can ask it to refine any of them.
Open a new persona and describe the character you want to play — a line is enough ("a jaded war correspondent in her 40s, gruff but secretly kind").
The assistant fills in the fields. Ask it to adjust tone, age, or backstory until it fits.
Tweak anything by hand and set it as your default if you like — changes save as you make them.
The Persona Assistant (right) drafts your name, title, and description from a one-line idea — refine by chatting.
Guidelines — steer tone and content
Guidelines are free-form notes that tell the model how you want the scene to go — pacing, mood, what to lean into, what to avoid. Think “keep replies short and punchy,” or “slow-burn, lots of inner monologue.” They apply to the whole chat and you can edit them at any point.
Guidelines are about style and direction, not world facts. Put who-and-what details in the story’s definition or worldbook; put how-it-should-feel in guidelines.
Reasoning
Turn on reasoning when a scene is intricate and you want the model to think before it writes — weighing motivations and continuity first, then composing the reply. It is off by default to keep responses fast; flip it on per chat when the moment calls for more deliberation.
