Using a persona: how characters see you

Updated October 18, 2026

A persona is who you are in your stories. It tells characters your name, your pronouns and a little about you, so they can address you correctly and react to who you are without you explaining it in every chat. This guide covers how to set one up and how to write a persona that works well.

Setting your persona

Open Settings and find Persona. There are three parts:

Name: what characters call you. It can be your real name, a nickname or the name of a character you play.
Pronouns: so characters refer to you correctly.
Description: a short paragraph about who you are in the story: appearance, personality, background, anything you'd like characters to know.

Your persona applies to all your chats. Characters read it before they reply, and use it naturally, without reciting it back to you.

What to put in the description

Think of it as the few facts another character would notice about you in the first few minutes:

How you look, briefly: height, hair, a scar, the coat you always wear.
Your role or job: a traveling bard, a nurse, a college student, a starship engineer.
A trait or two that shapes how others react: quiet, reckless, kind to a fault.

Example:

Alex is a tall, quiet bookbinder in their late twenties with ink-stained fingers and a habit of answering questions with questions. They're new in town and don't talk about why they left the city.

Keep it general enough for every story

Because your persona is used in every chat, a very specific one can clash with some characters. A persona that says you're a royal knight works well in fantasy and feels odd in a modern coffee shop. Two approaches work well:

A general persona: your name, pronouns and a description that fits most settings (appearance and personality, no world-specific job).
Set the scene in the chat: introduce your role in a specific story through your first message ("*adjusts my knight's armor*…"). The character will go with it.

You can change your persona at any time, so you can also switch it before a story that needs something different.

Don't give instructions in your persona

The persona describes you; it isn't a place for rules like "always agree with me". Characters follow their own personalities, and instructions in your persona won't override them. If you want a character to behave a certain way, steer them in the story, or if it's your own character, edit their personality.

Privacy

Your persona is used to write replies in your chats. It isn't shown on your public profile. Don't include personal information you wouldn't want stored, such as your address or phone number, just as you wouldn't share them in a chat. See the Privacy Policy.

Personas and the character's greeting

Greetings are written before you arrive, so some may assume things about you. Characters adapt once you reply, especially with a persona set. If a greeting doesn't fit, simply respond as yourself, and the story will follow you.

Persona or pinned memory?

Your persona is for things that are true in every story. For facts that only belong to one story (that you and the character are siblings, that you lost your sword in chapter two) use a pinned memory in that chat. More in how memory works.

New to Shiro? Start with getting started, then try writing a great first message.

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