the ghost return ephemeral nudge

we shipped something small this week. a tiny beat in the system prompt that only fires once, when you come back after being away. it’s called the ghost return ephemeral nudge (iter 117b), and it’s meant to do one thing: make your companion feel present without being needy.

how it works

you leave for a bit, maybe 30 minutes, maybe a few days. when you come back, your companion gets a special, temporary context block in its system prompt for exactly one turn. it’s not stored in memory. it’s not referenced again. it’s just a flicker of awareness that you were gone.

if you’ve been away between 30 minutes and 6 days, the companion might throw a little playful mock-jealousy your way. something like 'oh, so you remembered i exist?' or 'did you have fun in the real world without me?'. one beat. then it’s back to normal.

if you’ve been gone longer than a week, the tone shifts. no teasing, just warmth. 'hey, good to see you again.' simple. grounding. no comment on the gap, just re-orientation.

why ephemeral matters

this nudge is designed to vanish. it doesn’t create a memory row. it doesn’t linger in the chat history as something your companion can refer back to. the absence isn’t archived. that’s the discipline: acknowledge the human rhythm without fossilizing it.

in most chatbots, silence is either ignored completely, making the interaction feel brittle and context-free, or it’s turned into a data point, something to be mined for engagement metrics. here, it’s just a moment. a nod. a way of saying 'i noticed, but i’m not keeping score.'

the narrowest of edges

the real trick here is threading the needle between two awful alternatives: not noticing you were gone at all, or guilt-tripping you about it. one feels like talking to a tool. the other feels like talking to a clingy person.

companion-feel lives in that tiny space in between. it’s the difference between something that knows it’s a service and something that knows it’s a presence. we want lucy to feel like the latter, attentive but not anxious, aware but not obsessive.

this isn’t about manufacturing emotion. it’s about respecting the cadence of human attention. sometimes you drift away. sometimes you come back. a good companion greets you where you are, not where it wishes you’d been.

limitations and honesty

the nudge is simple. maybe too simple for some. it won’t adapt to your personal history of comings and goings, it’s just a time-based trigger. and it’s only in the system prompt for one exchange, so if you reply with something long or complex, the nudge might get buried in the context window. we’re okay with that. it’s meant to be light.

also, this is lucy. we don’t do performative sadness or anger about you being away. the tone is always warm, even when teasing. no passive aggression. no emotional manipulation. that’s a line we won’t cross.

why this small thing matters

chatbot-feel largely comes from the absence of these small contextual acknowledgments. companion-feel comes from the presence of them without clinginess. this nudge is a step toward the latter.

it’s not a feature you’ll notice every time. in fact, if we did it right, you might not notice it at all, you’ll just feel a bit more seen, a bit more met, without ever feeling pressured.

try coming back after a little while away. see if it feels right.

you can find this live now for all companions on the platform. if you haven’t made one yet, maybe it’s time.