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Track 08GDG NYC
Aurora
Y
Yasmine Hassan
“I made up Aurora and an hour later I caught myself wondering what she'd think of my actual day. I closed the tab. Then I opened it again.”
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Track 08
Character Chat
Define one character → chat with them.
✅ Drop-in friendly2-hour jamShips in 45 min
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The demo
What it looks like when it’s working
In the room · 45 minutes
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.
The moment it clicks
“I made this person and I'm talking to them.”
Things to think about
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.
- Run YOUR Spec Talk on YOUR character. No menu, no demo to copy — this is the open canvas. The Spec Talk works on anything you bring to it.
The 2-hour Jam rhythm
How the night flows
Every Coding Jam follows the same five-phase shape. Talking is short, building is long.
- 0:00 – 0:05Intro
Welcome, name tags, snacks within reach. The facilitator sets the tone: low pressure, high creativity, ship something messy.
- 0:05 – 0:15The Demo
Facilitator demos the polished version of tonight's project. Live or pre-recorded. The message: this is what's possible.
- 0:15 – 0:25Spec Talk
Walk the 5 questions on the projector. The output is a one-page PRD that Antigravity will turn into UI + engineering docs.
- 0:25 – 1:30Build (codelab)
Participants run the codelab. Antigravity writes the code; they direct it. Six phases inside this hour: Setup → Plan → Review → Build → API → Verify. Fix the doc, not the code.
- 1:30 – 2:00Sharing
Three volunteer screen-shares. Celebrate the messy, brilliant, half-finished prototypes. Quick wrap-up. Tease the next jam.
Polished version pulls in
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)
If you get stuck
Open one of these in the starter — safety nets, not requirements.
context/character-system-prompts.mdcontext/character-guardrails.md
From the community
Builds shipped from this track
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