Character Chat
Define one character → chat with them.
What it looks like when it’s working
What you’ll build
Define one character (name + 1-paragraph personality + 1 thing they'd never say). Chat with them — up to 5 messages back and forth. No persistent memory across sessions.
“I made this person and I'm talking to them.”
While you build
- One paragraph of personality + one thing they'd never say. That's the whole spec. Adding more makes the character generic, not deeper.
- The 'never say' rule is the secret weapon — constraints create authenticity. Without it, every character sounds the same.
- Five messages is a feature, not a limit. It forces you to test the persona itself, not the chat scrollback.
- Bring your own character. No menu, no template to copy — this one is the open canvas.
How the night flows
Every Coding Jam follows the same five-phase shape. Talking is short, building is long.
- 0:00 – 0:15Intro
Grab a name tag and a slice, say hello to the instructor, and meet the people either side of you — you'll be asking them things later, so it pays to know their names now. Low pressure, high creativity, ship something messy. Then a quick word on what the room is building tonight, and you're off.
- 0:15 – 0:30Credits & setup
The instructor shares the Google Cloud credits with the room. Everyone gets their environment ready — whichever tool they brought. Nobody should be installing anything once the build starts.
- 0:30 – 1:35Build
Heads down, and enjoy it — this is the part everyone came for. The agent does the typing; you decide what it's making. Ask the room when you get stuck; someone two seats away hit the same wall ten minutes ago. Want more structure? The codelab walks the spec-driven route — Setup → Plan → Review → Build → API → Verify — but nobody has to follow it.
- 1:35 – 2:00Share & submit
Show the room what you made — two minutes, screen-shared from your seat. Half-finished is welcome; the wobbly ones are usually the most interesting. Say what surprised you along the way, and cheer for everyone else while you're at it. Then submit your build before you leave. This is the one thing not to skip — it's what puts your name and your chapter on the showcase, and it takes about two minutes.
Where to take it after the jam
The 45-minute build is the win in the room. These are the ideas you can pull in over the next week — your homework isn’t homework, it’s the polished version.
- Persistent memory across sessions
- Character avatars and voices
- Multi-character world
- Reverse mode (you play the character)
- In-character safety guardrails
- Themed visual packs (anime, sci-fi, noir)
Open one of these in the starter — safety nets, not requirements.
context/character-system-prompts.mdcontext/character-guardrails.md