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02.11: Dialogue History

The actual recent message history as alternating user/model items. The bottom of the prompt, immediately above the LLM’s next response.

File: src/utils/text/context/dialogueHistory.ts:25-157

Iterate simplifiedMessageHistory (built by the chat pipeline’s buildSimplifiedHistory, which has already collapsed runs of consecutive same-author pure-text messages within the same server-calendar day into single entries; Better Time Awareness keeps cross-day messages separate) and append one or more context items per message with three orthogonal concerns interleaved:

  1. Role mapping — persona-authored → model; user impersonation flips the impersonated user → model; everyone else → user.
  2. Media descriptor emission — decide only context budget: whether media is inside the media window, whether counted images fit MEDIA_IMAGE_MESSAGE_LIMIT, and whether duplicate images should be dropped. The builder records capability-neutral mediaDescriptors instead of deciding whether an image/video becomes a provider media part. The per-attempt resolver (mediaResolver.ts) later turns descriptors into final image/video parts, {image_analysis_tool} notices, plain blind-model notices, or increase_media_context hints.
  3. Context-note injection — if context_note is configured, inject [System: ${note}] at context_note_depth messages from the end of history. The default-off verbatim tool-calling workaround adds a separate depth-3 system note when enabled and the effective LLM has tools.
  4. Better Time Awareness — when enabled, inject a depth-1 reunion note for a returning triggerer and date separators at server-calendar-day boundaries.

Substantial — see signature in dialogueHistory.ts:25-44. Notable:

  • contextItems: StructuredContextItem[] — the in-progress list (mutated in place; this is the only contributor that doesn’t return new items)
  • simplifiedMessageHistory: SimplifiedMessageForContext[]
  • tomoriConfig (provides message_fetch_limit, humanizer_degree, context_note, context_note_depth)
  • tomoriState (provides context_note and context_note_depth; media capability is intentionally not read here)
  • mediaContextWindow: number | undefined — override; falls back to memoryGuard.getMediaWindow()
  • isUserImpersonation, impersonatedUserId
  • messageIdMap — compact ID ↔ Discord message ID, populated as media hints emit
  • uncensorInputOptions, convertMentions
  • reunionNote — precomputed by the chat pipeline after the indexed stats read
  • dateSpacerTemplate — pre-expanded once by nativeBuilder; null disables spacers

Promise<void> — appends to contextItems in place. Each appended item is tagged DIALOGUE_HISTORY (default in pushDialogueHistoryContextItem) or CONTEXT_NOTE_INJECTION for the injected note.

Per message:

  • Role mapping computed from author type and impersonation flags.
  • Persona user block handling happens before this stage in buildSimplifiedHistory: active persona_user_blocks with block_type = 'block' replace that user’s recent live dialogue turns/direct media with a single [System: ...] block notice for the active persona (consecutive messages from the same blocked user collapse into one notice) and suppress reply annotations quoting those messages. The blocked user is still excluded from tool-intent scanning, voice transcription, and sprite priming (visibleRawMessages). Memories, reminders, documents, and generic references from other users are not redacted.
  • Media-window calculationeffectiveMediaWindow = min(requested, message_fetch_limit); mediaWindowCutoff = totalMessages - effectiveMediaWindow.
  • Media descriptor emission:
    • Filters MEDIA_IMAGE_MESSAGE_LIMIT (env, default 3) most-recent messages that carry “counted” images (non-emoji, non-sticker).
    • Drops duplicate images that recur in a later in-window message (duplicateImageLastIndex lookup).
    • Adds per-message mediaDescriptors carrying URI, MIME type, registered media ID, media-window membership, and extendBy for older out-of-window media. Custom emoji images are not descriptors; they remain text via emoji normalization.
  • Budget-only media notes:
    • Rendered-image-limit skips emit a capability-neutral [System: N image(s) omitted due to rendered-image limit] note.
    • Duplicate images are dropped with logging only.
    • Capability-specific notices are not emitted here. resolveMediaForModel emits {image_analysis_tool} guidance, plain blind-model notices, and increase_media_context hints per generation attempt.
    • Intentional deviation from the pre-refactor behavior: out-of-window media now produces a plain “outside the current media context window and cannot be viewed” notice even for blind models. Blind notices still include the media_N handle so non-vision tools that accept media references (for example img2img/inpaint/image-to-video) can target the source message. Previously that blind + out-of-window combination emitted no line, which hid the fact that media existed at all.
  • Media attribution hint[System: These images (Media IDs: X, Y) were sent by Z], with dedicated wording for reply-referenced media (“included in the message being replied to”) and forwarded media (“attached to the forwarded message described above”). Forwarded media registers the forward wrapper’s own message ID as its media ID: the original message lives in the source channel, so only the wrapper ID is resolvable by media-ID tools fetching from the current channel (the shared image extractor scans the wrapper’s messageSnapshots to find the media).
  • Text part assembly${authorName}: ${content} prefix, mention conversion, humanizer transform (model items at HEAVY+), uncensor input transforms.
  • Copied-render webhook reconstruction — webhook usernames formatted as SourcePersona (target) are attributed to SourcePersona for role mapping, self-reply ownership, and reply routing, while authorName preserves the full visible label. The resulting dialogue line stays reversible as SourcePersona (target): content, so the model can repeat the same syntax.
  • Sender metadata — dialogue items carry hidden sender metadata (personaName when available, otherwise authorName) so strict-chat media relocation can attribute model-role images without parsing the visible {Name}: text prefix.
  • Detached system parts — system hints that should not be merged with the message text are split into a separate user-role item via pushDialogueHistoryContextItem.
  • Date spacers — before a message whose server-calendar day differs from the preceding timestamped message, emits an absolute-date [System: ...] separator. Messages without createdAt neither create nor advance a boundary. The {message_metadata_tool} macro is expanded once before this loop, so the emitted hint names reveal_message_metadata without introducing async work per message.

Context-note injection (once per build):

  • If context_note is set, computes contextNoteTargetIndex = max(0, totalMessages - context_note_depth).
  • Injects [System: ${context_note}] as a user-role item with tag CONTEXT_NOTE_INJECTION at the target index (or at the end if the history is shorter than the depth).
  • If tomoriConfig.verbatim_tool_calling_enabled is true and tomoriState.llm.has_tools is true, injects one additional CONTEXT_NOTE_INJECTION at depth 3. This nudge tells Custom endpoint models how to emit the strict code-span/fenced verbatim tool-call syntax. The matching tool schemas are dumped earlier in the prompt by stage 07b (07b-verbatim-tool-definitions.md), gated by the same predicate.
  • A producer-supplied reunion note reuses the same activeNotes mechanism at depth 1, immediately above the most recent message. The chat pipeline omits it for user impersonation and when no internal user id is available. First-time and returning-user variants include an “if you haven’t already” social nudge, which encourages a warm question without repeating it throughout the grace window.

Reunion grace is stateless. StatRepository.getUserPersonaReunionInfo reads the last message_sent timestamp from buckets before CURRENT_DATE and today’s persisted count for the (user, persona lineage) tuple across all servers. Today’s writes cannot erase the detected gap; the note expires when today’s count reaches TIME_AWARENESS_GRACE_TRIGGERS, and the next DB day resets it naturally. The stat buffer can extend the grace window by one trigger, an accepted cosmetic tolerance.

Injection Calendar timezone Reason
Reunion note Personal → server → UTC Describes the returning user’s lived days
Date spacer Server → UTC Represents a shared channel history boundary

After this stage runs:

  • For each message, exactly one or two items are appended:
    • One combined item when the role is user and media/text both exist
    • Two separated items (user system parts + role real parts) when the role is model and detached system parts exist
  • Counted images respect MEDIA_IMAGE_MESSAGE_LIMIT — older counted images get a budget note instead of descriptors.
  • Duplicate images don’t appear twice; the last occurrence in the window is the one that renders.
  • mediaDescriptors remain capability-neutral. They are not provider-ready image/video parts until resolveMediaForModel(...) runs for a concrete attempt model.
  • Context note injects exactly once per build — either at the depth target or at the very end if history is shorter.
  • Verbatim tool-calling nudge injection is opt-in and independent of persona/channel/global context notes; adding the workaround must not suppress the global context-note fallback.
  • Capability OFF passes neither a reunion note nor a spacer template, preserving the pre-feature dialogue context for both injections.
  • messageIdMap.register(...) is called for every media reference the LLM might ask about after resolution (so increase_media_context, image_analysis_tool, and media-reference tools have stable IDs).
Env var Default Purpose
MEDIA_IMAGE_MESSAGE_LIMIT 3 Max in-window messages that render counted images
PERSONA_USER_BLOCK_CACHE_TTL_SECONDS 60 TTL for active persona user block lookups
TIME_AWARENESS_REUNION_DAYS 7 Minimum personal-calendar-day reunion gap
TIME_AWARENESS_GRACE_TRIGGERS 3 Persisted same-day triggers that retain a reunion note
Source Field Effect
tomoriConfig message_fetch_limit Caps media window
tomoriConfig humanizer_degree HEAVY+ applies humanizer to model items
tomoriConfig context_note, context_note_depth Context-note injection
tomoriConfig verbatim_tool_calling_enabled Enables the depth-3 verbatim tool-calling nudge when the effective LLM has tools
tomoriConfig time_awareness_enabled Opt-out gate for reunion notes and date spacers
tomoriConfig timezone_offset Server-calendar boundary for date spacers
tomoriConfig uncensor_unicode_space_enabled, uncensor_sanitize_enabled Drives uncensor transforms
tomoriState context_note, context_note_depth Persona-level override of tomoriConfig values
Memory pressure memoryGuard.getMediaWindow() Dynamic media-window shrink under load

This is the biggest contributor by complexity, with multiple plugin-relevant seams:

Surface Plugin-relevance
Media-window policy (effectiveMediaWindow, maxExtendBy) Coupled to memoryGuard + message_fetch_limit. A plugin adding “always include all media” or “per-channel media budget” would extend the window calculation.
Media descriptor shape New media kinds should add descriptor fields here and resolution behavior in mediaResolver.ts.
MEDIA_IMAGE_MESSAGE_LIMIT policy Hardcoded env var; a plugin adding “per-persona media limit” would extend the resolution.
Image-attribution hint format Hardcoded English; localization would extend. → plugin plan candidate.
Humanizer + uncensor integration Shared with sample dialogues (stage 10).
Context-note injection depth Tomori-state can override tomoriConfig — a plugin adding “per-channel context note” would extend the resolution. → plugin plan candidate.
pushDialogueHistoryContextItem (the only contributor that uses it) The push utility wraps tag defaulting; if a plugin emits its own dialogue items it would use the same helper to stay consistent.

A plugin extension for “alternate history rendering” (e.g. collapse-tool-calls, anonymize-user-content, summarize-old-messages) would most naturally take the form of a per-message pre-processor running before the role mapping + text/media emission. → plugin plan candidate.

  • History helpers (history.ts): covered in native-assembly README.
  • Message-ID map: → no dedicated doc; messageIdMap.ts helper only
  • Image-analysis tool: tool registry (→ tool-loop pipeline)
  • increase_media_context tool: tool registry (same source)
  • Memory-pressure media-window shrinking: → no dedicated doc; src/utils/security/rateLimiter.ts helper only
  • Humanizer transform: → src/utils/text/processors/formatters.ts helper
  • Uncensor transform: → src/utils/text/uncensor.ts helper