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Personas

A persona is a user-side identity you attach to a conversation: a name + a description. The name fills {{user}} in card prose; the description rides in front of the character's system prompt so the model has a bio to anchor to.

Why bother

Without a persona, Pluma fills {{user}} with your global display name (set in Settings → General; defaults to "You"). That works fine when you're being yourself.

Personas matter when:

  • You're playing a different identity in a chat ("Alice the wandering scholar").
  • You want different characters to know you under different names.
  • You want the model to address you by a specific name rather than "you" / "user".

Creating one

Settings → Personas → + New persona.

  • Name (required) — fills {{user}} and lands explicitly in the system prompt as "The user's name is …". This is what the assistant reads back to you.
  • Description (optional) — a bio. Pushed to the model alongside the character description.
  • Avatar (optional) — PNG or JPEG, up to 20 MB. Stored as a portable Tavern v2 persona card so you can share it.

Save the persona first, then attach an avatar.

Attaching a persona to a chat

In any chat, open the as: … dropdown (top-center on mobile, header on desktop). Pick the persona. Mid-chat swaps work — the next assistant turn is told the new name in the system prompt.

Anchor in the system prompt

When a persona is attached, Pluma always emits a system block before the chat history:

# The user
The user's name is Alice.

## About Alice
A wandering scholar with a dry sense of humor.

The name line is mandatory; the description block appears only if you set one. This is why mid-chat persona swaps actually re-anchor — without the explicit declaration, the model would carry forward whatever form of address it had inferred earlier.

Built-in default

No persona attached and no global name set → {{user}} substitutes as "You". Reads natural in narrated prose ("You walk into the room") so the unset state doesn't bleed the literal word "User".