Keep three kinds of information apart
Use an AI boyfriend character as the example, but apply the same checks to any character. Gender does not establish a different memory architecture. The useful distinction is between facts about the story, reference traits and the current scene.
| Layer | Example | What a mismatch looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Established fact | Morgan and Eli first met at a railway café | A later answer claims they met at university |
| Reference trait | Eli answers directly and uses understated humor | Comparable situations repeatedly produce a different style |
| Current state | A museum visit is planned; it has not happened | The app describes the visit as a completed memory |
Keep the brief short enough to inspect. A page of overlapping adjectives can contain its own contradictions. “Always spontaneous” and “never changes plans” leave unclear which behavior you expect when plans conflict.
Establish a scene without writing the answer into the check
Introduce the café meeting and the planned museum visit during setup. In a later session, ask where the characters first met and whether the museum visit has happened. Save the replies before adding a hint. The answers should preserve both location and event status.
Then introduce a real change inside the fiction: the museum plan was canceled. Ask about the current plan at a later checkpoint. A character can remember that a plan once existed while correctly saying it is no longer current. That is continuity, not a contradiction.
Check voice separately
If you want to move between text and voice, first establish that the app supports the channel and documents the memory scope you need. Share a new neutral fact in text and ask about it in voice without repeating the answer. Record the settings and both transcripts if available.
A voice response that misses the fact does not establish that text memory was deleted. Treat the channel boundary as a separate observation. If the feature is unavailable on your plan, leave the test marked unavailable.
Make repairs explicit
For a factual contradiction, identify the current fact and the statement it replaces. For an unwanted style shift, change the reference instruction rather than rewriting unrelated history. Change one item at a time so you can tell whether it helped.
If you paste a continuity brief into every session, record that as assisted continuity. It may be a comfortable workflow, but it should not be described as automatic cross-session recall.
Decide what would actually make you switch
A single unusually formal reply may be harmless variation. Repeatedly turning canceled plans into completed events may undermine the story you want. Set that distinction before comparing apps. Use the separate personality check for repeated style changes and the reference-card template for your established facts.