Guides

Practical help for people who keep their characters and stories on their phone. Written by the LonelyTavern team, and useful whether or not you use our app.

Getting started

Which API key do you need for AI roleplay, and how to get it

OpenRouter, DeepSeek, Google, OpenAI, xAI, Moonshot, or Z.ai: which to pick, where the key goes, what a message costs, and what each provider does with your chats.

How to write an AI character card that works

What each field does once the model sees it, how many tokens to spend, and the fixes for a character that speaks for you, agrees with everything, or contradicts itself.

Why your AI character forgets things, and what actually helps

The context window in plain words, what each symptom means, what Character.AI, JanitorAI, Chai, and SillyTavern do about it, and five things that help tonight.

What AI roleplay costs: a subscription vs your own API key

What one message costs, what the four common subscription prices buy as prepaid credit, when a flat plan still wins, and how to keep the meter low.

Moving your chats

Chai: export and back up your chats

Chai has no export, and in 2026 it hid chats older than 14 days without warning. What you can save, how, and where to continue.

Character.AI: export your chats, and keep them

Character.AI is in Chapter 11. How to request the official export, what arrives, and how to turn it into a story you can continue.

Talkie AI: export and back up your chats

Talkie's Export Data page returns four account fields and no chats. What the data request is worth, how to save a conversation, and how to rebuild the character.

JanitorAI: export your chats and characters

No export button, and chats lost in migrations "cannot be restored." The data request, the community tools, and what to respect about hidden definitions.