Personas and tones
Personas and tones are two thin style layers that compose with the chat’s system prompt at send time. A persona sets the role the model plays; a tone tweaks how it speaks. They’re curated presets that play nicely with your own custom instructions rather than replacing them.
Personas (role)
Pick one from the Persona row of the chat’s Parameters panel (Ctrl + Shift + P), or type /persona <name> - for example /persona translator, or /persona none to clear it. A bare /persona tells you which one is on, and the command palette completes the persona ids (code-reviewer, eli5 and so on). The selected persona adds a short system prompt that frames the assistant’s job.
- None - no persona. Uses only your custom instructions.
- Code Reviewer - bug hunts, security checks, blunt PR feedback.
- Writing Editor - tightens prose and emails without flattening voice.
- Brainstorm Partner - diverges first, converges later, pushes back on weak ideas.
- Explain Like I’m 5 - plain language, concrete analogies, one idea per paragraph.
- Translator - accurate translation that preserves tone and idiom.
The active persona shows as an accent-tinted chip above the composer, sharing the row with the tone chip, any Library source chips and any attachment chips. Hover it for a description; click its × to clear it. A persona belongs to one chat - switching chats doesn’t carry it over. It isn’t saved with the chat, either: the persona text is added at send time, so after you restart Loach you pick it again.
Tones (style)
A tone is appended after the persona and your instructions, biasing the delivery without changing the role.
- Default - the model’s natural voice, no override.
- Direct - leads with the point; drops hedges and preamble.
- Detailed - thorough coverage with caveats and reasoning.
- Casual - plain English, conversational.
- Formal - a professional register suitable for business writing.
- Encouraging - supportive framing for learners and first drafts.
- Playful - light wit and personality, humour in service of clarity.
- Skeptical - stress-tests claims, surfaces counterarguments and edge cases.
- Socratic - guides with questions instead of handing over answers; switches to direct answers when explicitly asked.
Set a tone per chat from the Tone row of the Parameters panel or with /tone <name> - for example /tone direct, or /tone default to switch this chat to Default. A bare /tone tells you which tone is in effect and whether it comes from your default, and the palette completes the tone names. Or pick a Default tone in Settings → General to apply to every chat that hasn’t chosen its own. The General tab has an expandable “What each tone does” drawer that shows the one-line summary for every tone, so the default-tone picker doubles as a reference.
The tone in effect shows as a chip above the composer too - including your default tone, so it never applies invisibly; hover the chip to see whether it comes from your default or was set for this chat. Clearing it with the chip’s × switches this chat to Default rather than unsetting it, so your default tone doesn’t come straight back. Like personas, a per-chat tone lasts until you restart Loach; after that the chat follows your default tone again.
How they stack
At send time the system prompt is assembled in this order:
- Persona - the role, first.
- Your instructions - whichever applies: the Space’s instructions, else the chat’s own, else your global ones (see precedence), with the date preamble, any full-text sources and memory around them.
- Tone - the style modifier, last.
Private Chat has its own persona and tone pickers in its panel and layers them the same way: persona, then its own instructions, then tone.