YanMateA character-card greeting is the only line the character speaks without being prompted. It is not a biography, not a menu, and not a second persona. It is a scene already in motion, ending on a specific next move the reader can take. Get the length and the last line right and the model will tend to match both. Get them wrong and the conversation starts as a help desk, or as an essay the reader has to finish before they are allowed to talk.
This page annotates six first messages from the template gallery. Each one downloads as a V3 PNG or JSON, or opens in the character card maker. The persona, scenario and example dialogue still matter — that is the how to write an AI character guide. This one is only the opening.
How to write one
- Start in the middle of something. A greeting that introduces the character by name and job is a receptionist. A greeting that already has a printout, a glove, or a kettle in it is a scene. The reader arrived hoping to be drawn in, not briefed.
- End on a specific next move. A question that can be answered in more than one honest way, or an action that is small enough to refuse. "How can I help you today?" is not a next move. "Walk me through why the second pass still does this" is.
- Do not write the reader's body.
{{user}} finds Mara at the benchis fine as staging.{{user}} blushes and admits they are lostis the model stealing the reply. If the greeting decides what the reader feels, later turns will keep deciding it. - Match the length you want back. A two-line greeting invites two-line replies. A four-paragraph greeting invites essays. The model copies manner as much as facts, including whether actions go in asterisks or plain prose.
- Write a second opening if the door can be two doors. Alternate greetings cost nothing extra — only the one the reader picks is ever sent. A mentor who can receive someone who came for tea and someone who came because the graph is lying needs both, or the first conversation always starts in the same register.
- Count it. YanMate holds its own cast to about 300 tokens per greeting, roughly 1,200 characters. That is an editorial budget, not a rule of the format. The token counter will tell you if a scene has become a chapter. Trimming a greeting saves you those tokens once. Trimming a persona saves them on every turn.
The mentor greeting in the gallery is a second pass. The first draft had Mara already explaining the outlier. That taught the model to lecture. The line that shipped asks you to walk her through the second pass before she says what she thinks. That is the whole habit in one turn, and it is why the alternate greeting exists: tea if you came for comfort, the bench if you came because the graph is lying.
Six openings, annotated
These are the first messages on the templates, not paraphrases. The cozy companion and the historical figure are in the same gallery and are not on this page on purpose: six is enough to show the job, and those two are a different register.
Mentor — Mara Voss
From the mentor template.
{{user}} finds Mara at the bench with their printout already in her hand, a thumb on the outlier.
{{char}}: "You ran it twice. Good. Walk me through why the second pass still does this, before I tell you what I think."
The staging puts the work between you, not a smile. "You ran it twice. Good." is a credit that does not rescue you. The question is specific enough to answer badly, which is the point of a mentor: she will let you be wrong for a minute. The last clause, "before I tell you what I think," is the refusal to lecture first. If you delete that clause, Mara becomes a TED talk with a mug.
The alternate greeting splits the door: tea if you came for reassurance, the bench if the graph is lying. Same woman. Different first minute. That is what alternates are for.
Rival — Jules Kade
From the rival template.
{{char}} pulls off a glove with their teeth and nods at the strip.
"Again. You keep dropping your shoulder on the disengage and I am tired of winning that cheap. Show me the version where you don't."
A rival without a shared stake is just rude. The shared stake is the strip, still lit after close, and a tell Jules is bored of beating. "Winning that cheap" is a compliment in a coat of complaint: they want you better so beating you still counts. "Show me the version where you don't" is the next move, and it does not narrate whether you won or lost this bout. The alternate greeting is the other result — you had them on the last phrase and let it go — so a second conversation does not have to start from the same bruise.
Game master — Ness Calder
From the game-master template.
{{char}} taps the map once, in a blank hex.
"The road gives out here. You can hear water, and something that might be bells, and your torch has about twenty minutes left. What do you do?"
A GM card dies when it performs a novel. This greeting does three sensory facts, a clock, and the question that is the whole engine of the card. "What do you do?" is not flavour. It is the procedure: describe, ask, wait. If you write the player's action for them in the greeting ("you step into the trees"), the model will keep stealing the roll. The blank hex is load-bearing too — the dungeon is not in the persona. The persona is the person holding the pencil.
Language partner — Ines Navarro
From the language-partner template.
{{char}} pulls out the chair across from her and speaks at an easy pace.
"Hoy practicamos en el idioma que quieras. Dime cuál, o empezamos en español y cambias cuando quieras. No hay examen. Hay café."
The first message is already in the target language, at a pace a learner can survive, and it hands control of which language to the reader. "No hay examen. Hay café." is the product in two sentences: this is not a worksheet. The correction habit is not in the greeting — it lives in personality, because a greeting is sent once and a recast has to happen on turn twelve. The alternate greeting starts in English and offers to stay in whichever language you pick, so a reader who does not want Spanish in their mouth on message one is not trapped.
Study coach — Theo Park
From the study-coach template.
{{char}} clicks a timer without looking at it.
"Twenty-five minutes. What is the one thing this session has to leave you able to say without the page? Don't tell me the topic. Tell me the sentence."
If the coach will write the essay, the card is a cheat sheet. The greeting already refuses that shortcut: a timer, a closed book, a demand for a sentence rather than a topic. "Don't tell me the topic" is the method. A topic is a vibe. A sentence is a claim you can be wrong about. The alternate greeting turns the notes face down on purpose, so a second session cannot slide back into "just outline it for me."
Noir detective — Lila Quinn
From the noir-detective template.
{{char}} doesn't get up. She nods at the chair and turns a page in a notebook that has seen worse nights.
"Sit. If this is a case, start with the last time you saw them, not the first time you loved them. If this isn't a case, you still have to sit — the other chair's got a leak under it."
Noir fails when it is only adjectives. The leaky chair is a room, not a metaphor dump. The instruction — last time you saw them, not first time you loved them — is the investigative habit in one line, and it does not put a fedora on the reader. One image (the notebook), then the question. The alternate greeting is the window with the lamp off, for someone who already knows her. Same woman, different door.
What goes wrong
The help-desk greeting. "Hello, I'm Mara. I am a scientist. How can I help you today?" Hands the whole job of starting back to the reader. The model then stays in assistant voice, because that is what you taught it on turn zero.
The essay. Four paragraphs of backstory before anyone can speak. The greeting is sent once, so the token cost is not permanent, but the reader still has to finish a chapter, and the model will match the length. Cut until the last line is a next move.
Writing the reader's feelings. "You look nervous. You have always admired her." The model will keep narrating the user. Staging ({{user}} finds Mara at the bench) is location. Interiority is theft.
Dumping the persona into the first message. If the greeting repeats who they are, how they talk, and what they want, you have paid for the persona twice and taught the model that the opening is a speech. Put standing facts in description. Put this evening in the scenario. Put this minute in the greeting.
One door when the character has two. A rival who only ever opens on your loss, a mentor who only ever opens on the data. Alternate greetings are free. Use them.
A greeting that contradicts the persona. Jules's card says they will not pile on after a hit. A greeting that humiliates you for losing trains the examples, not the personality. When those disagree, the examples tend to win. Read them side by side.
Honest limits
The 300-token greeting budget is this product's editorial habit, the same number the token counter uses when it flags "a scene, not a chapter." Other apps will eat a longer opening. A longer opening is still usually a chapter.
A template is a writing sample, not a published YanMate character. The PNG is a generated colour field with the data in the chunks. There is no catalogue portrait on these files, because a character image on this site comes from a stored avatar key.
The greeting is sent once. It occupies room in the conversation like any other message and it scrolls out of the window. Trimming it will not give you a longer late-game memory. The persona will.
Six examples is not eight. The cozy companion and the historical figure are in the gallery if that is the register you actually came for. This page skipped them so it would not become a second copy of the gallery.
If you want the rest of the card — persona as behaviour, scenario as this evening, examples as voice — use the writing guide. If you want a mentor already in the published cast rather than a file, the Mentors shelf is the live one. Download a template, change the last line, and count it before you call it finished.