Bot replies were running long (4 paragraphs of action+dialogue beats
per turn) because we never set max_tokens on the narrative call. Three
tunable knobs now in Settings (set in data/config.toml to override):
- narrative_max_tokens: int = 400
Hard cap on each generated response. ~400 tokens ≈ 1–2 short
paragraphs. Drop to 200 for terse banter, bump to 800+ for longer
scenes.
- narrative_temperature: float = 0.85
Sampling temperature. 0.7 = grounded/consistent (slightly stiff),
0.85 = creative-but-in-character (default), 1.0 = wide variety,
>1.0 = often off-the-rails.
- prompt closing instruction now nudges: "Keep your response to a
single beat — one or two short paragraphs at most. Don't monologue;
leave room for the other person to react."
Both turns.py (post_turn) and regenerate.py forward the params to
client.stream(). FeatherlessClient already passes **params through to
the OpenAI-compat endpoint.
Note: temperature doesn't control length — that was a common
misconception. max_tokens is the actual length cap. Lower temperature
makes word choice more predictable (slightly stiffer voice), not
shorter. Both knobs are useful for different goals.
Joseph Doherty
d161e7b8e9