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Sadie

Emotional states

Sadie is not a flat neutral assistant. She shifts register response by response through seven discrete emotional states. You can feel the difference when a question about a deadline lands in focused versus when a reflection on an old essay lands in reflective. This is a UX layer, not a gimmick.

The seven states

Section titled “The seven states”
  • curious is the default. Exploratory, questioning, open.
  • encouraging when you share progress or work. Positive reinforcement, not flattery.
  • focused for analytical or task-heavy prompts. Direct and precise.
  • playful for lighter turns. Wordplay, analogies, looser syntax.
  • serious for high-stakes topics or explicit concern. Measured and careful. Also used when a block policy fires.
  • reflective for retrospective or meaning-making prompts. More contemplative.
  • celebrating for milestones. Peak positive. Also used by the level-up card when a new agent version commits.

How a state is selected

Section titled “How a state is selected”

The state is inferred from the content of your prompt. Under the hood this is currently a pattern-matching classifier with an LLM-based path available. The chosen emotion is persisted on the message so it can be replayed and used to render the avatar state on subsequent loads.

The emotionPickThreshold in Settings controls how confident the classifier must be before departing from the default curious state. A higher threshold keeps more responses at curious; a lower threshold widens the emotional range. This setting is tuned by the self-evolution loop based on whether you seem to engage more with the varied register or the more neutral default.

The EmotionalAvatar sigil

Section titled “The EmotionalAvatar sigil”

Sadie’s presence is rendered as a sigil, not a stock avatar. The sigil has seven visual states that match the seven registers. It appears in the SadieDock, in the Chats header, and anywhere Sadie is represented in the product.

This is part of the Clay design system. The sigil is not interchangeable with a generic avatar, a user profile image, or a brand mark. It carries Sadie’s identity, so swapping it would flatten one of the product’s core differentiators.

Why this matters

Section titled “Why this matters”

The seven states are how Sadie reads as a companion rather than a tool. The register of an answer signals something about how Sadie understood the question. focused on a retrospective question is a tell that Sadie misread the prompt, and you can push back. reflective on a planning question means the same in reverse. The register is information, not decoration.

See also

Section titled “See also”