Customizing BuiltChat
BuiltChat can be customized in two ways. Appearance settings change how the app looks and how content is displayed, while personalization settings help AI models respond in a way that better suits you.
Appearance settings can affect both chat and image generation. Personalization, including custom instructions and memory, applies only to chat responses and does not affect image generation.
Appearance
Open Settings → Appearance to change BuiltChat's colour mode, theme, controls, and chat display. You can choose light or dark mode, follow your device's system setting, and select a colour theme.
General appearance options let you choose where common controls appear and how generated images are displayed:
- Show the colour mode or theme selector in the floating toolbar.
- Place chat buttons in the sidebar instead of the floating toolbar.
- Display generated images using nearby common aspect ratios and resolutions.
Chat appearance
Chat appearance settings control how messages, Markdown, diagrams, and code blocks are displayed. You can wrap long lines of code, show line numbers, display the source below Mermaid diagrams, and show hash marks on headings.
Use the preview in Appearance settings to see how these options affect chat, code, and mathematical content before returning to your conversation. These settings change presentation only; they do not change the model's response or the information sent to it.
Personalization
Open Settings → Personalization to manage custom instructions and memory. These settings provide additional context for chat models so responses can better reflect your preferences and previous conversations.
Personalization is best for information that should be useful across ordinary chats. It does not apply to image generation. Custom instructions also apply to chats inside projects, alongside the project's own instructions and context.
Custom instructions
Custom instructions tell chat models about you and how you prefer them to respond. For example, you can provide your nickname, location, occupation, preferred writing style, or guidance such as “Use British English” or “Keep answers concise.”
You can create instructions in either of two formats:
- Guided: Fill in separate fields for your details, preferred style and tone, and any additional guidance.
- Freeform: Write your preferences and instructions in your own words.
Save your changes after editing. You can turn custom instructions off without deleting them, which prevents them from being included in new chat prompts until you turn them on again.
Memory
BuiltChat has two kinds of memory for chat:
Persistent memory: Stores useful facts about you, such as preferences or personal details, for future conversations. Ask BuiltChat in a chat to create, update, or remove a memory.
Semantic memory: Allows BuiltChat to refer to relevant information from your previous chat history when answering a new message.
Each memory type can be turned off independently. Turning off persistent memory stops saved facts from being used and prevents new ones from being stored. Turning off semantic memory prevents information from previous chats from being used in responses.
You can review persistent memories in Personalization settings and delete all of them when needed. To prevent memory from being used for a single response without changing your main settings, use the Disable memory command in the chat message box.
Personalization in projects
Global custom instructions continue to apply when you chat inside a project. The model also receives the project's instructions and shared context. Use global custom instructions for preferences that should follow you everywhere, such as your preferred language or response style, and use project instructions for guidance related to that particular body of work.
Persistent memory about you can still be used in project chats. Conversation history memory is limited to chats in the same project rather than being drawn from unrelated chats. For details about project instructions and shared sources, see Projects.