Chat
People talk to a persona on its public page. You can talk to it yourself while you work on it. This page is about the public side: who can chat, what a visitor sees before the real model answers, and the line shown while the persona thinks.
Public chat
Anyone who finds a persona's public page can talk to it without signing in. The hub lets them in when the persona is public, visitor chat is switched on, the emergency switch that stops all visitor chat is off, and the visitor's address has not gone over its limit.
Conversations are kept for 30 days, and an hourly sweep removes older ones. Each turn sets aside its cost before it runs and settles up after, under a dollar cap. What a visitor sends is screened before it reaches the persona, and if the screening cannot run, the message is refused.
Demo chat
Demo Chat is a scripted conversation for visitors who are not signed in. You write the script yourself. It is either a set of keywords with replies, or an ink story, which the hub replays over the conversation so far. Steps and replays are limited, and so is how large the script can be. You can try one turn of a script before saving it, and a script that does not compile cannot be saved while demo chat is on.
Anonymous visitors get the script. A signed-in visitor goes through to the real model. The demo describes the persona; it does not perform it.
Chat status
Chat Status is a holding message, shown between the question and the answer. You choose its words in the present and the past tense, and the frames of its icon. A tint is yours to add if you want one. It is shown on the persona's public page and on every other surface the persona chats on, and it adds nothing to the prompt.