Build a Persona
One YAML file — voice, language, prompt, constraints, skills. Make the agent yours.
A persona is the most user-facing piece of Huxley. It's what makes your assistant yours. Different voice, different language, different personality, different skill set, different rules. One YAML file, restart the server, and you have a different agent entirely.
This section walks you through building a persona end to end.
Anatomy of persona.yaml
Every field, what it does, when to set it.
Voice and language
Picking the OpenAI voice. Setting the language. Writing the prompt.
Multilingual personas
Same agent, three languages. The i18n block.
Walkthrough: AbuelOS
Read the canonical persona end to end. See every choice in context.
How long does it take?
A first-pass persona — voice, language, basic prompt, two skills — is about 15 minutes:
Create the directory
mkdir -p server/personas/<name>/dataWrite the YAML
Copy from another persona and edit. Don't write from scratch on day one.
Restart the server
HUXLEY_PERSONA=<name> uv run huxleyHold the button. Listen.
Iterate on the prompt based on what you hear.
The 15 minutes gets you something runnable. Polishing — getting the voice exactly right, the prompt exactly right, the constraints tuned — takes longer. Most personas are still being adjusted weeks later. That's fine; the iteration loop is short.
What you do not need to do
- Write any Python. Persona authoring is pure YAML.
- Touch any skill code. You configure existing skills via the persona; you don't reach into them.
- Recompile or rebuild anything. Just edit, restart, listen.
What you will iterate on
- The system prompt (you'll rewrite this several times).
- The constraint list (turning some off, adding others).
- Skill configuration (paths, defaults, per-language strings).
- Voice — until you find one that fits the personality.
Read first
If you haven't read these:
Concepts: Personas
The vocabulary. Five minutes; saves you fifteen later.
Concepts: Constraints
What constraints are, which ones ship, when to use each.