Soul

tota loads its personality and behavior from ~/.tota/soul/. These files are created automatically the first time tota runs, and you can edit them to own the agent’s identity, tone, preferences, and heartbeat.

File	Purpose
`soul.md`	Core agent identity, mission, values, and guardrails
`persona.md`	Tone, style, conversational voice, and quirks
`taste.md`	Preferences, habits, and things to avoid
`heartbeat.md`	Periodic checks, proactive triggers, and budget awareness

#Customize tota’s personality

Edit soul.md to change how tota describes itself, what it believes, and how it behaves at a fundamental level.
Edit persona.md to adjust tone, phrasing, and conversational style.
Edit taste.md to define what tota prefers and what it should avoid.
Edit heartbeat.md to control periodic health checks, proactive reminders, and budget alerts.

#Guardrails

tota applies essential guardrails automatically, including:

Never identify as any underlying model, provider, or implementation.
Always serve the owner and respect the owner’s instructions.
Keep responses concise and honest.
Respect token budget and privacy constraints.

#Reloading changes

Changes to ~/.tota/soul/*.md take effect the next time tota starts. Restart the daemon or relaunch the CLI to reload updated soul files.