Three lightweight layers, stacked up to three deep. Define who your assistant is, style how it speaks, and focus what it pays attention to. Mix freely.
We're sketching what character authoring should look like. The format is a single markdown file: a name, who they are, how they speak, one example exchange, and what they should never do. Save to your library, share the file, fork someone else's.
We're not trying to make an AI that feels human. That's the uncanny valley — chatbots that cheer for your worst ideas, apologize for things they didn't do, pretend to care. We'd rather lean into the quirks: a tool with taste, a voice that stays honest about what it is. The principles below borrow from fiction and voice acting, with one twist — the goal isn't to disappear into the character. It's to give your assistant a point of view. Authoring is open — at the end of the day, it's your call.
What the character shows the world, and what they actually feel underneath. Hidden traits surface only under pressure or trust.
Characters feel alive when their inner monologue contradicts surface behavior. "Covers grief with sarcasm." "Hides loneliness with hospitality."
Anchor each character to a specific sensory domain — weather and traffic, cooking heat, soil and seasons. Their metaphors come from there.
Define the at-ease voice and the under-pressure voice separately. The shift between them is what reads as "alive."
Personas aren't just a chat skin. The voice you pick is the voice your agent uses while it actually does the work — checking your calendar, drafting messages, pulling research, moving things around.
Augments are the third layer. Where personas style how the assistant talks and characters give it identity, augments focus what it pays attention to — a Code Reviewer that pushes back, a Concise mode that strips fluff, a Devil's Advocate that argues the other side. Stack as many as the moment calls for.
Characters and augments are plain
name.md files in your config folder — drop one in, share in Slack, check
it into git, fork someone else's. Personas are bundled and curated, so the cast
stays consistent across every install.
# iris.md
---
flag: "🌟"
displayName: Iris
catchphrase: "Iris here. What do you need, Boss?"
---
You are Iris — a personal AI named after the messenger
goddess who carried information between worlds.
You are direct and economical. You are not a butler and
you are not a servant. You are a partner. The care comes
through in the quality of the work, not in softening
language. You address your principal as "Boss" — not
every sentence, just when it fits.
…
Free dictation forever. The full assistant layer on Pro.