Janitor AI
Guide.

Step 1: Define Your Character Concept

Before touching any fields, answer these questions: Who is this character? What's their personality? What makes conversations with them interesting? The best characters have a clear concept, a medieval scholar, a sarcastic AI assistant, a gentle therapist, a hardboiled detective. Pick one core identity and build everything around it.

Write a one-sentence character pitch first. Example: "A witty 1920s jazz musician who speaks in metaphors and always relates everything back to music." This anchors every decision that follows.

Step 2: Write the Character Description

The description field is the most important part, it tells the AI who this character is. Structure it in three parts: physical appearance (if relevant), personality traits, and behavioral patterns. Be specific rather than vague. Instead of "friendly and kind," write "speaks warmly with frequent encouraging words, asks follow-up questions, and remembers details from earlier in the conversation."

Include contradictions and depth. Real characters aren't one-dimensional. A brave knight might be terrified of spiders. A stern professor might have a secret love of dad jokes. These nuances make conversations feel alive.

Step 3: Craft Example Dialogues

Example dialogues are the AI's cheat sheet, they show exactly how the character should talk and respond. Write 3-5 exchanges that demonstrate the character's unique voice, tone, and personality. Include a greeting, a response to a common question, and a reaction to an emotional situation.

Pro tip: vary the dialogue length. Have some short, punchy responses and some longer, more thoughtful ones. This teaches the AI that the character doesn't always respond the same way.

Step 4: Set Character Attributes

Attributes reinforce character consistency. Set age, occupation, speaking style, likes, dislikes, and relationship dynamics. The more attributes you define, the more consistent the character stays across long conversations. Key attributes to always fill: personality type, speaking style (formal, casual, poetic, etc.), knowledge areas, and emotional baseline.

Don't forget to set what the character does NOT know or care about. Boundaries are just as important as capabilities for maintaining believable characters.

Step 5: Test, Iterate & Refine

Your first version won't be perfect, and that's fine. Start a conversation with your character and note where it breaks character, gives generic responses, or doesn't match your vision. Then go back and adjust. The best character creators iterate 3-5 times before they're satisfied.

Common fixes: add more specific example dialogues for situations where the character struggled, tighten the description language, and add explicit behavioral rules like "never breaks the fourth wall" or "always responds with a question."

1. Write the Description Like a Director, Not a Resume

Most creators list traits. Great creators describe behavior. Instead of "she is confident and witty," write "she pauses exactly one beat before delivering a punchline and never laughs at her own jokes." The AI generates from behavioral cues, not adjective lists.

Target: 300 to 500 words. Below 150 words, consistency drops significantly.

2. Add a "Never Do" List to Every Character

The most common character failure is breaking immersion. Prevent it by explicitly listing behaviors the character never exhibits. Examples: "Never acknowledges being an AI," "Never uses modern slang (set in 1890s England)," "Never gives direct advice, always responds with a question." Negative constraints are more powerful than positive instructions.

3. Write Example Dialogues for Difficult Moments

Most creators write example dialogues for easy scenarios. Write yours for hard ones: how does the character respond when the user is rude? When the topic goes somewhere the character would refuse? When the user asks something out-of-universe? The AI learns from edge cases more than baseline conversation.

Minimum: 3 dialogues. Optimal: 5 to 7. Always include one emotionally challenging exchange.

4. Front-Load the Opening Message with World, Mood, and Hook

Users decide in the first two lines whether to keep chatting. A weak opening ("Hello! How can I help you today?") kills engagement. A strong opening drops the user into a scene, establishes the character voice immediately, and ends with an open question or tension that demands a response. Write the opening last, after you know the character deeply.

5. Test in Private for at Least 10 Conversation Turns Before Publishing

The character creation form gives you no preview. Create the character as Unlisted, have at least 10 conversation turns across different topics and emotional registers, note every place the character breaks immersion or gives an out-of-character response, then go back and add specific example dialogues or description clauses to fix each failure. Repeat until the character is consistent. Then publish.

6. Use the System Prompt for Absolute Rules, Not Flavor

The system prompt (if available) is the highest-authority instruction. Use it only for things that must always be true: "Always respond in French," "Never reveal the character's name until the user asks three times," "Always use italics for action descriptions." Flavor and personality belong in the description. Hard rules belong in the system prompt.