The prompt system turned AlternateYou from a chat interface with timeline data into a conversation with a defined branch identity. Instead of sending an undifferentiated history to a model, the app began assembling ordered blocks for safety, behavior, style, timeline, profile, memory, recent messages, and the current turn.
The order matters. High-level constraints come first so later user context cannot quietly redefine the product's boundaries. Timeline identity and profile context precede recent messages so the generated voice has a stable branch to speak from. The latest memory summary supplies continuity without adding the entire history to every request.
The associated design work also made an important conceptual decision: the alternate self should compare paths as possibilities, not rank them as objective truth. Believability would come from specific tradeoffs and continuity, not from pretending to know what would really have happened.
Identity is therefore not prompt decoration. It is a structured, timeline-scoped input to every generated turn.
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