Personas: describing your own character
A persona is the name and description of the character you play in a roleplay, which the frontend sends to the model so it knows who it is talking to.
What a persona is
The character card tells the model who it is playing. The persona tells it who you are playing. In SillyTavern, Persona Management lets you create several, each with a name, an avatar and a description, and lock a persona to a specific chat or character. The persona name replaces the {{user}} macro everywhere, including in cards and the first message.
How it reaches the model
The description is plain text inserted into the prompt. SillyTavern lets you choose its position: in the prompt near the character description (the default), in the author's note area, at a depth in the chat, or not at all. In Chat Completion presets it appears as its own block in the prompt manager, and you can drag it to a different spot. Every token of it is sent on each request.
What to put in it
- Facts the other character can see or would know: appearance, role, relationship to them, how they speak.
- Anything the story depends on: "a newly hired deckhand who owes Mara money".
- A short line or two is often enough. 50 to 200 tokens covers most personas.
- Write it in the third person ("Sam is a tall deckhand with a scar"), which reads naturally next to the character description.
Avoid writing the persona as instructions for how the model should act on your behalf. A detailed list of your character's feelings and habits can encourage the model to narrate your character, which is exactly what most people do not want.
Common mistakes
- Default "User". If no persona name is set, the model addresses you as "User", which breaks immersion.
- Persona and card disagree. The card says the user is a stranger; the persona says an old friend. The model will mix them.
- Too much inner state. The model may start speaking and acting for you. A rule in the system prompt such as "Never write {{user}}'s actions or dialogue" plus a matching stop sequence helps.
Personas with Wild West API
Personas are handled by the frontend and arrive as ordinary text in the request, so they work identically with any model on the API. If you use the API directly instead of SillyTavern, put the persona description in your system message or a short message before the chat.
FAQ
What is {{user}} in SillyTavern?
A macro replaced with your active persona's name everywhere it appears in cards, prompts and messages.
Why does the AI keep writing my character's actions?
Often the card or first message narrates the user, or the persona is written as behavior. Fix those and add a clear rule plus a stop string with your persona's name.