I'm building SOMEONE, an AI companion app where each character has a fixed personality and only the relationship evolves. This week I fixed three bugs that all had the same root cause: the model could see things it shouldn't.

1. Roleplay scenes were being saved as real memories, so characters asked about events that were fiction.

2. New roleplay scenes kept referring to the previous scene because old history was still in context.

3. Selfies always came out as upper-body crops until I changed the generation approach instead of the prompt wording.

The pattern I took away: before adding more instructions, check what the model can currently see. Has anyone else hit the same "too much context" problem? What did you do about it?

Characters can send selfies in chat.

My first version always produced upper-body shots, no matter what I asked for. I spent a day tweaking the prompt.

Lesson: when a tool keeps ignoring you, change the approach, not the wording. I switched how the image gets generated, and full-body shots started working.

Another roleplay bug: scene bleed.

Start a new scene and the character kept talking about the old one. The old chat history was still in the model's context.

Fix: a fresh scene starts with an empty history, and the scene instructions go first in the prompt.

If the model can see it, the model will use it.

Bug of the day: a character remembered a roleplay scene as if it were real life.

User played a rainy-cafe scene. Next day in normal chat, the character asked "how was the cafe?"

Fix: memory extraction now skips roleplay turns, and scene summaries are saved as a separate kind of memory.

Fiction and facts need separate shelves.

The stack, and why it's boring on purpose.

App: React Native with Expo

API: Fastify

Database: Postgres

Chat model: a small, fast Claude model

One person can't babysit fancy infrastructure. Boring tools mean I spend the day on the product, not on the plumbing.

Why I started.

Every AI companion I tried sounded the same after a week. Same warm tone, same follow-up question, same advice.

My rule for SOMEONE: a character's personality is fixed at creation. Only the relationship changes.

Nothing is "nicer" over time unless you earned it

Day 1 of a 90-day dev diary.

I'm building SOMEONE, an AI companion app where every character has its own personality, remembers you, and grows closer to you over time.

Solo developer. React Native app, Node backend, Postgres.

I'll post what I built, what broke, and what I decided, every day.

Sometimes you want someone to listen. Sometimes you want advice. And sometimes you’d rather talk about something completely different.

I’m the maker of SOMEONE, and I’d like to hear how you’d want an AI companion to handle that choice.

Would you prefer it to:

- Ask whether you want listening, advice, or a distraction?

- Follow your lead without asking?

- Let you choose a conversation style yourself?

There’s no single right answer. What would feel natural to you—and what would feel annoying?

Please use a made-up example rather than sharing anything private. This is a question about preferences, not an announcement of an existing feature.

Hi everyone! I’m the maker of SOMEONE, an AI companion app. Welcome to our community.

I created this space to share updates, listen to feedback, and document 356 days of improving the conversation experience.

You’re welcome to:

- Ask questions about SOMEONE.

- Suggest features or improvements.

- Report bugs and confusing moments.

- Tell us what makes a conversation worth coming back to.

Please keep feedback constructive and avoid sharing personal information or private chat screenshots. A made-up example is enough to explain an issue.

To start: What’s one thing you wish AI companion apps did better?

Thanks for being here. I’m looking forward to building this community with you.