Personality
A personality defines how your agent thinks and speaks. It holds the instructions that shape every response, the messages the agent sends at the start and end of a conversation, and the choice of underlying AI model. You can create multiple personalities and assign any one of them to an agent.
What a personality contains
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Instructions | What the agent knows and how it should behave — tone, rules, what to focus on, what to avoid |
| Greeting message | The first message the agent sends when a conversation starts |
| Fallback message | What the agent says if it cannot help with a request |
| Underlying AI model | Which Claude model powers the agent |
Choosing an AI model
Elaras supports models from Anthropic and OpenAI.
| Model | Best for |
|---|---|
| Claude Haiku | Fast responses, lower credit cost, high-volume agents, simple Q&A |
| Claude Sonnet | More capable reasoning, complex queries, nuanced instructions |
| Claude Opus | Most capable — complex instructions, long documents, multi-step reasoning |
| GPT-4o mini | OpenAI alternative, fast and cost-efficient |
| GPT-4o | OpenAI's most capable model, comparable to Sonnet |
If you are unsure, start with Claude Haiku and switch up if you need more thorough responses.
Versions
Personalities are versioned. You always work on a draft version. When the draft is ready, you publish it — the published version becomes the one your agent uses. Published versions are locked and cannot be edited.
| State | Behaviour |
|---|---|
| Draft | Editable. Not visible to visitors. Available in the preview panel for testing. |
| Published | Locked. Active on any agents assigned to this personality. |
Only one version can be published at a time. Publishing a new version automatically replaces the previous one.
Creating a personality
Go to Personality > New personality in your agent's settings. Give it a name, then configure the first version:
- Write the instructions
- Set the greeting and fallback messages
- Choose the underlying model
- Save as draft
Editing a draft
Draft versions are fully editable. Open the draft and make your changes — instructions, greeting, model choice. Changes save automatically.
Publishing a version
Before you can publish, the draft must pass the testing gate: at least one scenario must exist and the most recent test run must pass. See Testing for details.
When ready, click Publish. Agents assigned to this personality switch to the new version immediately.
Cloning a version
To iterate on a published version without editing it directly, open the version menu and choose Clone. This creates a new draft that is an exact copy. Use it for instruction refinements, A/B testing, or rolling back — clone the previous published version, then publish the clone.
Assigning a personality to an agent
An agent uses one published personality at a time. Open the agent's Settings tab and choose a personality from the dropdown. The agent immediately starts using that personality's currently published version. When you publish a new version later, the agent picks it up automatically — no reassignment needed.
Typical workflow
- Clone the current published version.
- Edit the instructions in the new draft.
- Test using the preview panel and run scenarios.
- Publish the draft — all assigned agents switch over immediately.
- If something is wrong, clone the previous published version and publish it to roll back.