Depth, Personality & instructions
How far the thinking goes, the one personality it talks in — the same in Core 4 and Logos — your own instructions, and what always stays fixed.
Three layers of configuration shape how Socria works with you, and they answer different questions on purpose. Depth decides how far the thinking goes. Conversation Style is Socria’s personality: the character it talks in, chosen once and the same in Core 4 and in Logos. Custom instructions say, in your own words, whatever the style doesn’t.
The hierarchy#
When settings could conflict, the order is fixed — top wins:
- Protected Human-First principles — authorship, the Answer Guard, transparency. No setting reaches these.
- Thinking Depth — how deeply the thinking goes.
- Conversation Style — the personality, the same in Core 4 and Logos.
- Custom instructions — your free-text preferences, in Logos.
- The conversation itself — what this moment needs. Asking for something different here wins for that conversation.
Thinking Depth#
The depth control sits beside the box you type in, in the model picker, in Core 3.1 and Logos 3. Core 4 and Logos 2 have none: Core 4 judges how far to go itself, and Logos 2 answers at one depth and puts the effort into the map and the model. Four registers:
| Depth | Register |
|---|---|
| Quick | Plain, conversational. Immediate clarity — an everyday question gets an everyday answer, no excavation. |
| Balanced | Thoughtful, considered; a mentor keeping your pace. The default. |
| Deep | Rigorous, pattern-spotting, precise distinctions — assumptions and tensions get pressed. |
| Abstract | Philosophically literate; principles, structures, values and meaning — grounded in your actual situation, never escaping it. |
Depth changes how far the thinking goes — length follows the thinking, so Quick is not a truncated Deep and Deep is not Quick with padding. And no depth changes how readily an answer is revealed. In Core 3.1 and in Logos alike, all four registers come with sign-in, on every plan — Logos used to think at Balanced unless you held Socria One, and that clip came out: depth is what makes Socria worth returning to, so charging to see it was charging people not to. Pick a register below — the reply is the same question answered there:
Three years of the same problems is a real reason to leave. The money is a separate one — and you've put them in the same sentence, as though the first were evidence for the second. What would the new role teach you that this one has stopped teaching you?
the everyday register — a thoughtful mentor, at your pace
Conversation Style#
One choice, under Manage Account → Personalization, kept with your account so it follows you to every device. It applies to Core 4 and to Logos — to new conversations and to the next message of one you already have open. Four styles, and the first is Socria as it already is:
| Style | In Core 4 | In Logos |
|---|---|---|
| The Thinker (default) | Measured and Socratic — the voice as written. | Curious and inventive — the voice as written. |
| The Direct | The substance first, shorter replies, a question only when the answer would change what comes next. | Builds first and talks less; statements over questions. |
| The Companion | Warmer and more conversational; encouragement that names what is actually good; humour when it fits. | Good company in the work — playful, enjoys a surprising result, pushes where it matters. |
| The Challenger | Leads with the weakest load-bearing point, asks for the evidence and what would change your mind. | Points at the test: the parameter to move, the case that would break the model; flags every guessed number. |
It is more than a line of text in the prompt. In Core 4 it also moves the per-turn register — the warmth, edge, humour and density the turn is written in — and the Direct leans replies brief the way a Concise reply length does, unless you set a length yourself. In Logos it sits above your own instructions, which layer over it. There are no separate personality dials any more: this is the one personality, so Socria sounds like the same Socria in both.
Core 3.1 keeps its own voice: there, depth already sets the voice, and a second one beside it would argue about the same sentence.
Custom instructions#
In Logos, a free-text field (up to 1,200 characters) layered over your Conversation Style — “talk casually, challenge my assumptions more, for math act like a lab instructor.” It is under Manage Account → Personalization, and behind “How should Socria work with you?” in Logos. Two ways to change it without opening either:
- For one conversation
- Just ask in the chat — “be more casual”, “fewer questions” — and Socria adapts on the spot.
- Permanently
- Say “remember this” and Socria updates the written instructions itself; what’s written there is what’s remembered.
However it is set, this layer shapes how Socria works with you, not its principles — your authorship, the Answer Guard and the transparency moves hold whatever you write.