NovelAI Features

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= Detailed Concepts =

This section seeks to explain, in-depth, the various elements that make up NovelAI.

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'GPT' Artificial Intelligence
Science fiction has us think of artificial intelligence as something for robots and alien spaceships, but the reality is very different. In this context, an artificial intelligence is quite unlike the natural intelligence exhibited by humans. The phrase that conjures thoughts of robotic assassins and intelligent holographic people is actually artificial general intelligence, or AGI.

The eponymous AI that NovelAI uses is a text transformer. This can be thought of as a very, very advanced form of autocorrect - it chooses words in sequence based on recognized patterns. This works by converting text to tokens, running a series of pattern recognition tests to determine the probability of the next possible token in the sequence, then returning the result.

No, you are not talking to a machine with thoughts and feelings. While NovelAI is very advanced, it is purely designed as a literature generation service. At times, you may feel like the AI understands you, and it may even seem emotional. This is it performing a very convincing facsimile of human literature - exactly what it was designed to do.

The AI is only capable of producing text that looks convincingly human, without understanding language on its own.

As such, NovelAI has no understanding of morality, as it has no understanding of anything. Please keep this in mind when experiencing the narratives presented in your Stories, and remember you can always ban certain tokens from appearing.

Parameters
Think of an AI like a human brain. Inside the brain, you find neurons, and those neurons are connected by synapses.

The number of parameters is the number of synapses. It's a measure of the density of the neural network's connections. The denser it is, the richer the connections, and the broader the scope of the AI's creativity.

The model is, in reality, a vector space and each parameter is a set of floating point numbers that constitutes a vector. Each Vector is a connection between tokens, and that network of vectors is an attempt to represents human language mathematically.

A model with more parameters takes considerably more Memory on the machine's hardware, but is capable of greater creativity and more 'natural' language.

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Tokens
The AI interprets text by converting it to tokens. Tokens are how the AI sees pieces of text. Much like morphemes, tokens are combined to form words or sentences. Because the AI has no judgment of its own, it relies on evaluating the relationships between tokens based on its training data, then determining the most likely token to come next in the sequence.

Think of it as a huge game of probabilities. There is no winner, but there are more likely answers, and the AI picks from those.



For example, a raincoat is composed of two tokens - the token for rain and the token for coat. When put together, the AI recognizes the pattern as raincoat, and evaluates its training material to figure out what tokens are associated with raincoat. Not all tokens are whole words - some tokens are as simple as punctuation marks, spaces, and even partial words like mah.

Because the AI is quite powerful, it's capable of evaluating patterns with up to 2048 tokens in total. When you hit Send, the Current Context is fed to the AI as tokens, the AI estimates the most likely next word in the sequence, then repeats the process until the Generation is returned.

Because NovelAI works by identifying links between tokens, including a token will cause it to have a higher chance of appearing. This means that writing, a negative, will cause the AI to still consider   as a possibility.

This is similar to ironic process theory. Instead, you should phrase positively -  - where possible.

Tokenizer Tool
NovelAI includes a built-in tokenizer tool that allows you to see not only the breakdown of tokens used in an input, but also the token IDs, token count, and character count.

This tool is accessed through the main menu, or by clicking on the token count of Memory, Author's Note or Lorebook entries.

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Story Library


Also known as the "left panel", this part of the interface controls everything outside of your Story. This includes the Settings menu, as well as the list of your Stories.

Shelves are effectively story folders. They are displayed on top of the list by default.

The cog icon (⚙️) contains the Settings menu, and is also where you can log out. Below them is the Search Field (🔍), along with the Sort Menu (🔻) which allows you to search through your Story collection.

The science beaker (🧪) contains the Tools menu, which includes Module Training, Tokenizer & Tutorial.

Every Story displays its Title, Description, the date it was last edited, and whether or not it is marked as a Favorite. The Title and Description can be modified by switching to the Story, then adjusting them in the Story Options. You can switch to a Story by simply clicking on it in the Story Library.

If your story is hosted on the servers, it will also have a little cloud icon at the bottom right to symbolize that. (☁️)

A new Story can be started by selecting the New Story button (+), found at the bottom of the Story Library.

You can also directly import a prompt by using the Import File button. (📤)

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Input Field
Here is the Input Field. This section of the interface is used to control the edit history of the Story, as well as being a place to type additions to your Story.



The edit history can be thought of as a timeline - every change you make is a step forward in the timeline. Undoing will take a step backward, Redoing will take a step forward, and Retry will make a new attempt at the last Generation. The Retry Tree is basically a way to jump between timelines - any time the AI sends a Generation response that's on the same point as an existing Generation, it will create a new entry in the Retry Tree.

More information can be found in their dedicated categories below.

Undo ↩
This option will take a step backwards in the edit history.
 * It will never overwrite anything in the edit history, only stepping backwards.
 * This will remove entire sentences at a time from the point you began editing, and will remove entire Generations by the AI.

Redo ↪
This option will take a step forwards in the edit history.
 * It will never overwrite anything in the edit history, only stepping forwards, and always with the most recent entry in the Retry Tree.
 * This functions inversely to Undo - instead of removing entire sentences and Generations, it will return them.
 * This is not affected by the location of your text cursor.

Retry Tree 0


This option provides a list of all the attempted Generations at this point in the Edit History.
 * You can choose the one you felt was the most appropriate.
 * This does not count as a Generation.

📕 Lorebook
Opens the Lorebook window.

Retry 🔁
This option will remove the last Generation, then make a new one.
 * While doing this, it will also create a new entry in the Retry Tree.
 * This does not affect any text you edit - if there's no Generation at this point in the edit history, it's the same as hitting Send.

Send ➡
This option will place all of the text in the input field onto the end of your Story, send all of the Current Context to the AI, then ask the AI to send a Generation.

This is a new step in the edit history, and does not create a new entry in the Retry Tree.

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= Story Options =



This section of the interface controls settings specific to your currently active Story. There are two tabs here - Story and Options.

Story Title
The name you gave to the Story, and the one you look for when using Search.

Story Description
A short blurb to explain the contents of the Story, or a witty quip to help you identify it at a glance.

Create a new tag
Adds a new tag which you can search for.

Saved Tags
All the tags that apply to this story. You can remove them by clicking in the little cross next to them. The ordering does not matter.

Memory, Author's Note, Lorebook and Context have their own entries in this section.

Story Stats
The Story Stats menu allows you to consult several metrics such as the number of text characters, your use of retries, the size of your retry branches, etc.

You may also prune your story in several ways in order to decrease its filesize.


 * Trim Story: Deletes all redo steps, leaving only the current path. You will not able to navigate the Redo Tree anymore, but the filesize of your story will be reduced.


 * Flatten Story: More aggressive version of Trimming. Deletes all Undo steps and branches, leaving you with a single block of text.


 * Reset to Prompt: Reverts your story back to the initial prompt it was started with, deleting everything else.



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Context
View Last Context opens a window which displays all the tokens sent to the AI for the previous generation. This helps you check if anything you feel is important was omitted. View Current Context does the same, but for the input you're about to send.



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Prompt
The prompt is displayed in cream by default. It is the first piece of text fed into the AI. If you have put anything into the Memory or Author's note, they will be inserted before it in the context before being sent to the AI.



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Injected Text
Injected Text is any text that is not part of the story, but part of the context. All of these elements are injected text:


 * The Memory.


 * The Author's Note, or A/N colloquially.


 * Lorebook entries.


 * Ephemeral Context entries.

Fundamentally, All Injected Text works the same way. It's read by the AI, and influences its generation. Traditionally, all Injected elements are encased between square brackets [ ] as they reduce the risk of the style of their content "leaking" into the generation, but this is usually not an issue.

There are two important things to consider about injected text:


 * Position determines the strength of the injection's influence. Closer to the end = Stronger. Further at the top = weaker.


 * Style determines how it influences the generation. Generally, you want to stay close to your Story's style, perhaps with minor concessions such as removing determiners, prepositions, etc.

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Memory
By default, the Memory is inserted at the top of the context, before anything else. Its position may be adjusted for a stronger (closer to the bottom) or a weaker (further to the top) effect. Traditionally used it to make the AI remember broad context elements.



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Author's Note
The Author's Note or A/N is identical in format and use to Memory, but it is inserted three newlines by default before the last token in the input. It has a greater influence as a result. The A/N's position may be adjusted for a stronger (closer to the bottom) or a weaker (further to the top) effect. Traditionally, it is used to either give immediate instructions, specify style, author, and tone elements, etc.



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Lorebook


The Lorebook allows you to create entries for specific elements in your story. This helps the AI have more information about characters, places, items, concepts and so on.

You can import a Lorebook file by clicking the 📤 Import button at the top left.

Basics
Type an entry's name then press Enter to access it, click the 📕 button, or Open Lorebook in the story tab on the right, to open the main lorebook window.

Click ➕ Add Entry to create a new entry. You can name it in the first text box. The second contains the entry's contents. Only the content and settings are read by the AI. The entry name is just an identifier.

Enabled determines if the entry will be inserted in the context if detected. If it is disabled, it won't trigger. This is useful to reduce context cluttering if you don't need details about specific things.

Keys are all the words that the AI will associate with this entry. If the AI reads this word, then the connected entry will be inserted in the context. Keys are case insensitive.

Type the key and press Enter to register it. Keys are case insensitive by default.

To make a Key case-sensitive, preface it with  and close it by  :

The Default Settings will be applied to all new entries, but they can be changed after creation.

Categories
Click ➕ Add Category to create a new category.

Categories allow you to organize Lorebook Entries, but also create a Subcontext. You can define default settings for all entries in the category as well.

A subcontext is basically a bubble in the main, complete context. In this bubble, all entries of the category will be inserted, then organized according to their settings.

The entries' individual insertion settings will be applied relative to other entries in the bubble only. i.e If an entry has an insertion position of -2 newlines, it will be inserted 2 newlines before the last line of the last inserted entry in the subcontext bubble.

The entire subcontext is then inserted as one block according to its own insertion settings.

This is useful if you want to lump a certain type of entries together, or use something like Scaffolding where every type of content has its own settings.

Attention: If an entry is inserted after a subcontext, then it may insert itself into that subcontext's text area.

💡 Lore Generation
Click the 💡 Generate button to enter the Lore Generator.

Insertion Settings
Accessed by clicking the Insertion Settings tab.


 * Search Range: Determines how many characters of text will be read by the AI when it looks for lorebook keys.


 * Force Activation: If turned ON, the entry will ALWAYS be in the context (if it can fit in there).


 * Key-Relative Insertion: By default, Lorebook Entries are inserted relative to the top, or the bottom of the text, see Insertion Position. When this toggle is ON, entries are inserted relative to the last occurrence of the Key found in the context.


 * Cascading Activation: When ON, this entry will also look for its keys in other Lorebook entries, the Memory, and the Author's note. Search Range will be disregarded if this toggle is ON.

You may also use a  (a newline marker), which helps isolate the entry further by separating it with a full newline.
 * Prefix & Suffix: These two are intended to work in tandem to allow for lengthier entries without losing coherence when the entry is trimmed. For example, you could add the prefix  and the suffix   to encapsulate the entirety of your entry despite trimming. If your entry read as , and the last sentence was trimmed, it would still read as   despite the end of the entry being trimmed - your prefix and suffix still remain.


 * Token Budget: Keeps this number of tokens in the context window for this entry. This will overwrite other content if necessary! It's recommended to set it a litter lower than the entry's full size.


 * Insertion Order: The higher this number, the earlier the entry is processed. Entries with a low value may be dropped to save space for those with a higher value. If you have three entries, with order 500,0 and -500, they will be processed from highest (500) to lowest (-500).


 * Insertion Position: How far from the top (if positive) or the bottom (if negative) will the entry be inserted in the window. The unit is defined in Insertion Type. It can be a number of tokens, sentences, and newlines.

As an example, if you set it to -3 Newline, then it will insert the entry's text as soon as it finds the third newline, reading back from the bottom of the window. -1 will mean it is always placed at the very bottom of the Context, just as positive 1 will always place it at the very top of the Context. 0 will always be the very top.


 * Trim Direction: If the entry needs to be inserted partially due to lack of room in the context window, should it trim from the beginning towards the end, (top) end towards the beginning, (bottom) or omit the entire entry if it can't fit fully (Do Not Trim)?

Lorebook Phrase Bias
Explained in Phrase Bias, although this has an extra setting: When Entry Inactive, which enables the biases if the entry is not active! This can help activate things randomly, such as monster encounters.

Phrase biases in entries can otherwise be used to favor nicknames for a person (such as referring to their job, or a shorthand), and terms relative to them.

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Why use Brackets?
Bracketed text is best described as being read by the AI as "Read this, but this is not part of the text." This helps it keep things into memory without trying to continue from them as if they were sentences in the text.

Different bracketing techniques exist, but the effects are unclear and debated.

In the model's finetune, brackets are used for metadata, such as  (Note the spaces!), or chapter titles. Punctuation outside of colons is usually only as part of a chapter/work title.


 * Traditionally, entire entries are encased in brackets.


 * You can also make several blocks, one per element. e.g. one block for style, one block for author, one for immediate action in the Author's note.


 * You can encase only descriptive passages in Injected Text entries if they differ from the usual style of your prose.

Brackets do not notably affect the accuracy of the text - this is Generation Settings at work.

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Context Viewer
The Context Viewer is a powerful tool to identify what elements were used by the AI in the last generation. This helps you diagnose Memory, Author's Note and Lorebook usage. Check for bloat, trimmed entries, or ones that take too much space using this tool.



Identifiers
Lists the Identifier of each element of the context that describes it's origin from one of the following:
 * Story: From the main text.
 * Memory: From the Memory block.
 * Author's Note: From the Author's Note block.
 * Display Name of a Lorebook Entry: The name that you gave that entry in the Lorebook, not its keys.

Inclusion
Lists if this element is included in the context:
 * Included: Successfully inserted in the context.
 * Partially Included: Inserted in the context but some trimming was performed.
 * Not Included: Insertion in the context failed or was not attempted.

Reason
Lists the reason for this element's inclusion or omission:

Included
 * Default: Reserved to Story, Memory and Author's Note. Included by default.
 * Key Activated: This Lorebook entry was triggered by one of its keys.
 * Forced: This Lorebook entry was activated because it was set to Forced.

Omitted
 * Disabled: This Lorebook entry was omitted because it was disabled.
 * No key: This Lorebook entry was ommitted because it could not find any of its keys in the text.
 * No space: This entry was ommitted because it could not be allocated enough tokens to fit.
 * No text: This entry was deactivated because it contains no text.

Key
Lists the key that triggered this Lorebook entry.

Reserved
Lists the amount of tokens reserved for this entry. This is usually lower than the Reserved Tokens setting of that entry, as that setting is the upper limit.

Tokens
Lists how many tokens are used by this entry solely on its own. Tokenization can cause a couple extra (or sometimes less) tokens to be used when this entry is placed in the text.

Trim Type
Lists how this entry was trimmed. There are four trim steps, which occur in this sequence:
 * Fit the entire entry without trimming. (No Trim) If it doesn't fit, go to the next step:
 * The entry was trimmed to a new line character inside its text. (New Line) If this results in the entry having less than 30% of its allocated token content inserted, go to the next step:
 * The entry was trimmed to a sentence delimited (period, ellipse, semicolon) (Sentence) If this causes the entry to have less than 30% of its allocated token content inserted, go to the next step:
 * The entry is trimmed by the individual token, and then all the content that can fit in the space that remains is inserted. (Token) If this STILL fails, this is likely because the Prefix and Suffix can't fit in the context, so the entire entry is omitted.

Advanced Context Settings


Remember all the advanced settings of the Lorebook? Those are used here, but for the Story, Memory and Author's Note.

These can be accessed in the Advanced Options collapse in the Options tab on the right.

This allows you to:


 * Fine-tune the maximum size of these blocks.


 * Make Memory or the Author's Note get trimmed before the Story by setting them to a lower priority.


 * Change the way these three blocks are trimmed.


 * Force suffixes and prefixes that you won't need to write in the blocks directly.

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Ephemeral Context


Ephemeral Context entries are effectively time-sensitive context injections. Think Mission Impossible:

Every time you generate text, you perform a step. Ephemeral Context entries wait a certain number of steps, appear, remain for a certain number of steps, and disappear.

The syntax example is as follows:

Several symbols are used to define the type of information specified:


 * {} Contains the block.


 * The first number specifies the exact starting step, if necessary. You can also specify negative steps using -


 * + specifies the delay in steps before activation. +0 will trigger immediately. Adding r to it will make it repeat after the number of steps set passes, even if the entry is still active. As a result, make sure the delay is longer than the duration if you don't want the entry to be always on, if it repeats.


 * ~ specifies the duration of the entry, in steps, before it disables.


 * , followed by + or - specifies the insertion position of the entry, in new lines. + starts from the top the context, - starts from the bottom of the context.


 * : specifies the beginning of the text content of the entry.

Thus:  will add "[Angela's amnesia temporarily dissipates.]" to the context, five new lines from the top of the context, for fifteen steps, starting thirty steps after you set up this entry. Effectively, it'll be on half the time.

You may also add a ! after the first curly brace to be able to specify a temporarily inactive entry. This makes it always present except during the Ephemeral Context's entry duration.

This one will be off half the time, when the other entry is active.

You can also type out Ephemeral Context entries directly in the Input box.

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= Options Tab =

AI Modules


AI Modules are data modules that are inserted into the AI's memory in order to influence the text it will generate. These modules reduce the total context space by twenty tokens when in use, but are not tokens in themselves.

Each module is similar to a "mini-finetune", a corpus of text that was used to adjust the AI based on how it is written. Different modules have different effects, which depend on your own writing and the ideas, characters and scenarios you write about.

There are three types of modules: Style, Theme and Inspiration.


 * Styles are based on multiple works from the same author.


 * Themes are based on multiple works, from multiple authors, but from the same genre.


 * Inspirations are based on a singular, specific work, from a single author.

Experiment to find what works best with what you enjoy and want to write about!

Further information on cleaning and preparing a dataset for use in training AI Modules can be found at the Datasetting for AI Modules section.

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Generation Presets


In order to make selecting the AI's various generation settings easier, NovelAI offers several generation presets.

Settings are divided into three categories:


 * User: Settings you have defined and saved, or imported.


 * Scenario: Settings that came included in the scenario you imported.


 * Defaults: Settings designed by NAI community researchers.

You can Import a .preset file, or export the currently selected custom preset in the same format.

Use the ➕ button to create a new preset based on the current generation settings.

Use the ✍ button to edit the preset's name.

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Generation Options
These settings allow you to fine-tune the generation settings to your linking. These get really technical so only explore them if you like messing with the finer things. Otherwise, leave them to their defaults; they're usually good as is.

Most of them deal with the Pool of possible tokens. To understand what this means, look at these examples:

could result in "up, down, left, right, across, around, fancy" and so on.

would result in fewer potential matches, such as "hot, bright, with".



Randomness (Temperature)
Imagine the next token for a generation comes out of a bag. Randomness shakes the bag, until one comes out. The most likely will be at the bottom, but shaking it makes other ones have a chance

True to its name, the Randomness setting (or "Temperature") increases the likelihood of less-expected tokens during text generation. This works by dividing logits by the Temperature before sampling. In plain English, this means the next part of the sentence will be more unexpected, as elements that have less of a chance of appearing are granted a greater likelihood of being used.

Max Output Length
This setting will adjust the highest number of Tokens returned at once by the AI in each Generation. It will not always hit this target, but it will never exceed it. Be aware that reducing the Output Length and enabling the Trim AI Responses option may cause undesirable effects such as very short sentences.

Repetition Penalty
Going back to the bag metaphor, Repetition Penalty checks for tokens that appear too often and throws them out.

Because text generation is based on patterns, repetition is a constant concern. The Repetition Penalty introduces an artificial dampener to the probability of a token depending on the frequency of its appearance in the Current Context.

As such, increasing this value makes a word less likely to appear for each time it shows up in the text. Do take note that this can get really awkward with words that are recurrent in the current context, such as names, or objects being discussed. With high Repetition Penalty, the AI may find itself unable to use a word repeatedly, and will need to substitute it with another which may be inappropriate.

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Sampling
Imagine that sampling is a metaphorical bag. You put possible tokens in it. The settings adjust how many tokens are in the bag, and how much shuffling is done.

Top-K Sampling
This setting affects the pool of tokens the AI will pick from by only selecting the most likely tokens, then redistributing the probability for those that remain. The pool will only contain the K most likely tokens. If the setting is set to 10, then your pool will contain the 10 most likely tokens. (Top-10 Sampling).

In plain English, lowering this setting causes more consistent Generations at the cost of creativity.

Nucleus Sampling
Relating to the previous setting, this adds up the probability of each potential Token in descending order of likelihood until it reaches the value specified. This value is an inverse percentage of likelihood for the next Token - therefore, lowering this value creates a smaller subset of probable Tokens.

In plain English, lowering this setting causes more consistent Generations at the cost of creativity.

As an example, if the most likely token has 30% chance, the second 25, the third 20, the fourth 10, the fifth 5, and the sixth 3, and your setting is at 0.9 (90%), then you would do: 30+25+20+10+5 = 90. The sixth most likely token and onwards will be removed from the pool.

Tail-Free Sampling
A tail in this context is the least-likely subset of Tokens to be chosen in a Generation. This alternative sampling method works by trimming the least-likely tokens by searching for the estimated tail' probability, removing that tail to the best of its ability, then re-normalizing the remaining sample.

This method may have a smaller impact on creativity while maintaining consistency. However, take note that it tends to behave strangely if your context does not contain a lot of data.

Repetition Penalty Range
Defines the number of tokens that will be checked for repetitions, starting from the last token generated. The larger the range, the more tokens are checked.

Dynamic Penalty Range
When Enabled, the Repetition Penalty is only applied to the story. All text injections (Lorebook, Author's Note, Memory, Ephemeral Context) will be ignored for the purposes of repetition penalty.

Repetition Penalty Slope
The penalty to repeated tokens is applied differently based on distance from the final token. The distribution of that penalty follows a S-shaped curve. If the sloping is set to 0, that curve will be completely flat. All tokens will be penalized equally. If it is set to a very high value, it'll act more like two steps: Early tokens will receive little to no penalty, but later ones will be considerably penalized.

Min Output Length
Much like the previous setting, this one adjusts the lowest number of Tokens returned at once by the AI in each Generation. It will never be below this target, but may exceed it. Setting this option towards its maximum also makes the AI more likely to produce long sentences.

End of Sampling Token ID
If you wish to end your Generations upon reaching a specific Token, simply add it to this field. Doing so will cause the Generation to end prematurely upon generating the Token.

This can be used to trim the output to single sentences by inputting punctuation, or to increase the accuracy of Lorebook entries by pausing Generation when a defined word is reached.

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Phrase Bias
Phrase Bias allows you to tell the AI to increase or decrease the probability of single or groups of tokens.

Rather than ban tokens outright, this is more of a direction to produce specific output, or avoid specific outputs without fully eliminating them.

Keep in mind that Phrase Bias is case sensitive.

Bias is collected in Groups with a certain Bias Level, which is applied to all phrases and tokens put in the Group.

To create a new Bias Group, click the ➕ button. The currently selected group can be deleted by clicking 🗑️.

To enter a new phrase or token in the Group, enter it in the text box and press Enter.


 * If you wish to insert token IDs (such as [198] for newlines), encase their numerical ID in Square Braces: []


 * If you wish to insert the exact input, as is, case sensitive and with exact spacing, encase in Curly Braces {}.

Bias Level is a non-linear Scale from -2 (less likely) to +2 (more likely). It is not an arithmetic scale: -2 is much stronger than simply "twice less likely than -1". The opposite is true for +1 and +2. Generally, a bias of -0.25 to +0.25, usually lower, works well for most uses cases.

Ensure Completion After Start
If checked, the AI will make sure Phrases are completed if their first token is generated.

For example, if you’ve given a positive bias to the phrase “blue business suit” with this function turned off, the AI might start generating outputs featuring blue lights, blue planets, or people with blue eyes. With Ensure Completion After Start turned on, the word “blue” will always be followed by the phrase “business suit”.

Unbias after Generation
If checked, the AI will disable the bias for the remainder of the generation once it has been applied once. Following the previous example, the first instance of "blue" will output "blue business suit", but all following instances will work as normal.

Ban Token
Any Tokens added here will have their likelihoods reduced to zero. This means they will not appear in Generations. As this adjusts the relationships between Tokens, this will have an impact on the phrasing chosen by the AI. Be careful about what you ban, because this can heavily disrupt output if used incorrectly.

When you add a new token to the banlist, it also adds: Any case variation of the token, and the token with a preceding space as well.

To prevent that from happening, and exclusively ban this token, add curly braces { } around the token you want to ban before pressing enter.

Banned Tokens
Relating to the previous setting, this field shows every Token currently blacklisted for generation. Clicking one of these tags will remove it from the list.

If you inserted an exclusive token (using curly braces), it will be displayed with brackets around it.

Ban Bracket Generation
At times, you may wish to include hints to the AI that are not considered for text generation. These can be encapsulated in square brackets ([ and ]) to relay information that will affect the Current Context while not being considered part of the actual text.

These most often take the form of hints. For more information on what to put between square brackets, see Keeping Track.

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Duplication, Import and Export
At the bottom of the options menu, you'll find various options for saving and loading stories and other data.


 * Duplicate Story creates a copy of the story in your library and switches to it. The story will have "- Copy" appended to its name.


 * Export Generation Settings exports only the AI settings you have currently selected. This is useful if you find settings you believe are worth sharing.


 * Export Story allows you to download the story as a .story file, copy the integral story JSON to your clipboard (can cause massive lag!) or download a .scenario file, if you are using placeholders.


 * Import is used to import anything created by NovelAI with the exception of themes. This means: .story, .lorebook or .scenario files. Alternatively, you can drag & drop these files to the main text box to import them.


 * generationsetting files must be imported directly from the Config Preset's Import menu, not the Import menu at the bottom of the Options tab.

You may export the entire story Lorebook as a .lorebook file by clicking 📥 Export Lorebook button at the top left of the Lorebook window.

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= Content Creation =

Defining Comments
Any line preceded by two pound signs without a space,  are considered comments' and will not be read by the AI, which you can use to give information to your end user.

Importing
You can create exportable scenarios from the options menu as well as importing them the same way you import a story, by dropping the file on the webpage or by clicking on the import story button when creating a new story.

NOTE: If you are on IOS, you may encounter issues importing files. Rename the extension to .json to fix this issue.

Importing a scenario with placeholders
When importing a scenario, you may be asked to fill in some information. Those are called placeholders. You can simply edit those fields to your liking.



Turning on Import Settings will import the Generation settings that were used by the Scenario author.

Adding a placeholder
You can add a placeholder anywhere within your story's prompt, memory, author's note and lorebook entries.

Placeholders have to be written in this format:. The placeholder is divided into four parts:


 * order: the order in which the placeholders will be displayed. 1 goes first, then 2, etc.
 * id: the only mandatory part of the placeholder, it has to be unique. If you have more than one instance of the id, it will use the same value for each of the placeholders.
 * default: the default content of the field when importing the value.
 * description: the text displayed above the input field when importing the value. If there is no description set, the text displayed will be the id. You may want to word this like a question for ease.

To get the field from the above picture, you have to enter

'''You cannot put these characters inside the text fields of the placeholder: $ {} [] # : @ ^ |

Note for the lorebook entries
For the lorebook entries, you can add placeholders on the title of an entry, its descriptions and its keys. If you want to use regex for your keys, you have to prefix the expression with a  for example to match with the name of a character, you have to write

Placeholder-filling Order
Placeholders are requested to be completed by the user in the alphabetical order of their ID. This means that if you start their id with a number that increments with each placeholder, they will be requested in the order of that number.

Example: Job will be requested before Gender, because its ID comes before it.

You can also define the order by preceding the id with a number, followed by a pound sign (#):

If different entries have the same Order number, they will be processed alphabetically according to their id.

Placeholder Table of Contents
You can create a Table of Contents for placeholders where you can insert a large amount of them in advance, allowing you to easily keep track of all the placeholders you have defined.

The syntax is identical to normal placeholders, with these notable differences:


 * It must be inserted at the absolute top of the prompt.
 * The initiating symbol is a percentage sign (%) rather than a dollar sign.
 * Every Placeholder must be on its own new line.



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Formats
Formats are different ways of writing Memory, Author's Note and Lorebook entries. Contributor Valahraban wrote an extensive research report on several formats, which goes into great details into various formats, their utility, and how to use them.

NovelAI does not recommend, endorse, or otherwise support any format type in particular.

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= User Settings =

The User Settings can be accessed from the Story Library, then clicking on the Settings button (⚙️).

AI Settings



 * Model Selection: Allows you to choose between the following models:
 * Sigurd, a finetuned GPT-J 6B model.
 * Calliope, the original finetuned 2.7B GPT-NEO model used in the Alpha.
 * Snek, a finetuned GPT-J 6B model trained specifically for Python output.
 * Genji, a finetuned GPT-J 6B model trained for Japanese output based on Japanese Light Novels.


 * Trim Excess Whitespace: If a loose space or repeated newline is detected at the end of the text, it will be cleaned up. Trailing whitespace can cause generation inconsistency.


 * Continue Response to End of Sentence: If ON, the generation will continue for up to 20 tokens more or until it creates a sentence delimiter (. or ;)


 * Stream AI Responses: If ON, displays the tokens from the AI as they are generated, rather than displaying the entire answer at once.


 * Streamed Response Delay: Delay between token displays if Stream AI Responses is ON.


 * Prepend a preamble in the Context: Adds a dinkus (⁂) and a new line before the entire context. This can improve quality when the context window isn't full by telling the AI "this is a new story".


 * Force 1024 Token Context Limit: If you have the Scroll or Opus Subscription plan, you can choose to use the Tablet plan context window by turning this setting On. This lets you demo for users with less money to spend, for example.


 * Apply Default Bias: Some logit biases are applied by default to the Dinkus and Asterism to make their generation less likely. Turn this OFF to remove those biases and apply your own.


 * Enable Token Probabilities: Activates a diagnosis mode which returns the probabilities of all possible tokens in the AI's response. You can access the interface by clicking the 🧠 button next to Retry under the main text box. Keep in mind that his greatly lengthens generation time!

Interface Tab



 * Gesture Controls: Enables swipe-based controls for the side tabs and the input box on mobile devices and touchscreens.


 * Swap Context Menu Controls: If on, use the NAI context menu on right click. Browser's default context menu is used if off.


 * Input Box: Toggles the display of the input box. If off, only the story box is displayed.


 * Output Highlighting: Toggles the different text colors in the story based on whether or not it was generated or written by the user.


 * Output Spellcheck: Enables spellcheck in the main story box if your browser supports it efficiently.


 * Context Viewer Colors: Color codes injected text elements in the context viewer depending on their origin.


 * Text to Speech: When enabled, generations are read out loud by the TTS service.


 * Show lorebook keys in the output box: When enabled, text that triggered a lorebook key will be shown in bold. This can have a performance impact.


 * Show story title: Displays the title of the story at the top of the screen if enabled.

Account tab



 * Default Storage Location: Switches between using Local Storage and Serverside storage by default.


 * Ignore Remote Story Conflicts: If you are editing the same story on two different devices at once, you may cause overwrite issues. If conflicts are detected, NovelAI will notify you and tell you of the changes, letting you choose which version you want to keep. Toggling this ON will make your current device always save changes regardless.

Defaults tab


The Defaults tab allows you to set the default Generation Settings and Module for new stories.

Text to Speech tab


The Text to Speech tab contains accessibility options for visually impaired users.


 * Speak Outputs: AI-generated outputs will be read by the TTS service if On.


 * Speak Outputs: User Input will be read by the TTS service if On.


 * Voiceset, Volume, Pitch & Speed: Selects the voice used by the service, the volume at which it will speak, its treble/bass pitch, and the reading speed. Press Test to check if your settings are comfortable.

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= Module Training =

Consult Datasetting for AI Modules for more information on how to prepare files for Module training.

AI Module training can be accessed from the Story Library, then clicking on the Tools button (🧪), then Module Training.

The left part of the interface contains the dataset. Files supported are raw text only, encoded in UTF-8.

Upload all the files necessary for your module with the Select File button. Give your module a Name and Description on the right-hand side.

The Total # of steps needed to train: field will display the estimate number of steps for 100% coverage of all text files. It is not necessary to set the number of training steps to that number. A good soft limit is ~3000 steps. You may also overfit your module by using more than the estimate. This can have problematic or useful effects depending on what you seek to achieve.

Select the number of steps using the slider, then click Train! to start the training. It will take several minutes before the module is produced. Once done, you can save it and import it like any other story, scenario or generation set.

Steps


You get a free allotment of steps per subscription period. Opus tier gets 10.000 steps per sub period. Other tiers get 500. Free Steps renew every month and do not accumulate.

You can purchase paid steps in order to train large modules or train more than your free allotment gives you per month. Paid Steps are permanent until spent.

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= Tokenizer =



The Tokenizer is a feature that allows you to check how your text is split into tokens before being sent to the AI. It can be accessed by pressing ALT+T or clicking on the Tools menu button (🧪) then "Tokenizer".

The Text tab will highlight each token in sequence, using a different color to make it more visible.

Token IDs will display the Token Identification Code that the AI uses. This is very useful for banning specific tokens (without any space addition and case insensitivity) using Ban Token ID.

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= Lore Generator =

The Lore Generator is a powerful tool that allows you to generate Lore for several types of objects, people, and concepts.

First, select a type from the dropdown, choosing one that fits the type of content you want generated. They may appear a little broad, so see which is the closest fit.

If you need the AI to be aware of elements in the Memory, Author's Note, or Lorebook, open Add Context (Advanced), and tick their respective boxes or enter Keys that will activate Lorebook Entries that you want the AI to be aware of when you generate the Lore Entry. Be aware that the Lore Generator is NOT aware of the Story Text!

Once you are ready, type:
 * The Name of the element you want generated (or a short description)
 * Pointers, in parentheses, separated by commas.

Here is an example:

Press ▶ or Ctrl/⌘+Enter to generate. Click 🔄 to retry the last generation. You can freely edit the text, and keep generating, just like in the main text editor!

Generation History is similar to the Redo Tree, displaying the last generations for all entries. The list is purged on refresh.

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