The presence

Preferences

How it addresses you, how far it acts alone, what it must never forget — set once, kept.

Preferences are per-user, per-presence, and they are where a presence's character actually lives — not in the face, not in the route. They come in two kinds, and the difference matters.

Two kinds

Structured — typed switches the platform enforces directly: route rules, wallet policy, memory dials.
Standing instructions — freeform prose the presence treats as permanently pinned memory that ordinary conversation cannot contradict.

Structured preferences

Group	Sets	Enforced by
voice	name, address, tone, verbosity, language	The route, as a pinned instruction it always sees.
initiative	silent vs. speaks up	Whether standing intents may message you unprompted.
route	default + escalation	The router — see Effort.
wallet	the spend policy	The policy engine — see Spend policy.
memory	decay window, always-pin list	The compactor — see Salience.

Standing instructions

The freeform half. Each line is a keyword pinned at maximum salience that conversation cannot overturn— only you can. This is what "standing" means: it holds even when you, in the moment, say otherwise.

preferences

{
  "calls_me": "by my first name, no honorifics",
  "tone": "dry, few words",
  "initiative": "speak up when something's wrong",
  "route": { "default": "claude-sonnet-4-6", "automations": "claude-opus-4-7" },
  "always_remember": ["my safe address", "I trade on Base only"],
  "standing": "never move funds over 0.05 ETH without asking, even if I told you to earlier in the day."
}

Precedence

When something said in conversation conflicts with a standing instruction, the instruction wins and the presence tells you it did. The order, strictest first:

wallet deny rules — see Spend policy; nothing overrides a deny.
standing instructions— tighten, never loosen; conversation can't defeat them.
structured switches — route rules, caps, memory dials.
in-the-moment conversation— everything else, including a passing "just do it".

This is why the founding instruction at raise time matters so much — it is the first and highest-precedence thing the presence knows, and it never decays.

Setting them

shell

yuzu prefs show
yuzu prefs set tone "dry, few words"
yuzu prefs edit                # the whole document

Or PATCH /v1/presence/me with a preferences object — API · Memory & wallet. Changes apply to the next turn; an in-flight reply finishes under the preferences it began with.