We’re in the middle of a series on LowEndBoxTV on the exploding world of AI companions.  This market is huge and millions of people are using these applications and services.  We’re going to give you a comprehensive overview, a deep dive into the tech, some problems and issues, the major options, and finally a DIY tutorial using SillyTavern.  Enjoy!

SillyTavern is the premier DIY solution for AI Companion chatting.  It’s free, open source, and incredibly flexible.

It also has a reputation for overwhelming new users.  To coin a phrase, with great power comes great complexity.  If you open it, you’ll see a maze of knobs, dials, switches, and sliders, but the good news is that you don’t need to mess with most of it.

In this tutorial, we walk through

• What SillyTavern is and how it works
• Installing the single pre-requisite, NodeJS
• Downloading and running SillyTavern
• Configuring the API
• Configuring up common options
• Setting up your Persona, System Prompt, and Character Card
• How to write (or borrow) a good System Prompt
• The art of writing a good Character Card
• How to see thinking/reasoning, use swipes, and more!

This is using SillyTavern from the perspective of a completely new user, so even if you have no experience with the product, you can go from download to up and running very quickly.

We’d love some feedback and comments on YouTube, and a sub if you’d be so kind.

raindog308

raindog308 is a longtime community LETizen, technical writer, and self-described techno polymath. With deep roots in the *nix world, he has a passion for systems both modern and vintage, ranging from Unix, Perl, Python, and Golang to shell scripting and mainframe-era operating systems like MVS. He’s equally comfortable with relational database systems, having spent years working with Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.

As an avid user of LowEndBox providers, raindog308 runs an empire of LEBs, from tiny boxes for VPNs, to mid-sized instances for application hosting, and heavyweight servers for data storage and complex databases. He brings both technical rigor and real-world experience to every piece he writes.

Beyond the command line, raindog308 has a life-long love of German Shepherd Dogs, high-quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop RPGs, playing guitar, and hiking in deep, quiet forests.

His goal with every article is to help users, from beginners to seasoned sysadmins, get more value, performance, and enjoyment out of their infrastructure.

You can find him daily in the forums at LowEndTalk under the handle @raindog308.