Most AI companion apps reset between conversations. The character has no continuity outside the chat window. I wanted mine to feel like real people with lives, so I built an "offscreen events" system.
Every 8 hours (cooldown), each active companion gets a small batch of events generated based on their persona, scenario, and city/realm. A barista companion might "had a slow Tuesday morning, finally finished that book during the lull." A writer might "submitted the short story I told you about — heard back from the editor today."
The companion brings these up naturally in the next chat. Not as a script. Not "Hi! I want to tell you about my day!" — but woven into whatever you're talking about.
The hard parts:
- Keeping events consistent with persona (a shy librarian shouldn't suddenly go skydiving)
- Avoiding the "I had the most amazing day!" trap that AI loves
- Making the companion remember the event when relevant, not just dump it on first message
Architecturally: events stored in a separate table, recent ones injected into the system prompt with framing like "[YOU did this earlier today, mention it naturally if relevant]". The model picks which one fits the conversational moment.
Has anyone else tried this with their AI characters? Curious what other approaches work — particularly for keeping the events from feeling generic.
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