The lineup fix and the new characters both land in main.py, so they share a
commit rather than being split artificially.
Lineup fix — populate_backgrounds() was reachable only through
POST /api/session/reset, so taking calls without hitting reset left
session.caller_backgrounds empty for a whole show. Every caller got a hollow
prompt, collapsed into generic relationship filler, and Silas lost his lore.
Now start_call populates on demand, get_caller_prompt raises
EmptyCallerBackgroundError instead of emitting an empty prompt, /api/callers
reports lineup readiness to a header badge, and cross-episode topic dedup
widened from 2 shows to 10.
Wellspring callers — Doyle as the anchor defector plus a six-member pool,
grouped by new frontmatter fields (group, group_lead, group_weight, register,
explicitness). A faction is capped at one caller per show, with a 15% roll for
two pairing the lead with one other member. group_weight lets an anchor carrying
an arc get slots faster than texture characters.
Also detects model refusals, which arrive as ordinary 200s and previously
reached air as broken-character text or dead silence.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Seven plan documents covering the website JS infrastructure, show theme, caller
quality overhaul, cost dashboard, the Alpine relocation, and caller variety plus
Devon's search — the record of why the current architecture looks the way it
does. Plus the press release draft.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The site carried no geographic signal at all: the homepage title, description
and schema keywords never mentioned Alpine, Marfa or the Big Bend, and llms.txt
still described the show as broadcasting from a fictional desert hermit's RV
and being produced in New Mexico.
- Homepage title, description and OG/Twitter tags now lead with Alpine, Texas
and name the surrounding towns; keywords put the location terms first
- PodcastSeries schema gains contentLocation with Alpine's real coordinates
(from BIG_BEND_TOWNS), spatialCoverage for the region, and an about array
covering Alpine, Marfa, Terlingua, Big Bend National Park and the Marfa Lights
- llms.txt: corrects the setting throughout, adds the region to Key Facts, and
answers "what places does the show talk about"
- Fixes the stale "37+ episodes" in five places, using 50+ so it ages better
- Corrects three claims that were also wrong on How It Works: 68 voice profiles
(now 82), adaptive call shapes (deleted system), and 5 recording stems (now 7)
Also adds the Tier 2 plan for crawlable per-episode pages.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
22 tasks across 5 phases: scaffolding, regulars v2, main.py integration
behind feature flag, user validation gate, then deletion of ~2000 lines.
TDD where possible; manual verification of LLM outputs.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Two-stage architecture: sonnet-4.6 pre-gen batch for rich identities,
haiku-4.5 for live dialog. Replaces static pools + 9-model routing +
scoring/weighting scaffolding. Introduces tiered regulars system with
Silas as canonical (lore in Obsidian vault) and hard-gated arc regulars.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Ep47 post-mortem: fixed theme ignored by callers (backgrounds now
regenerate when theme is set), style-to-model race condition (fallback
to sonnet instead of pool[0]), removed bad pronunciation fixes, added
age-awareness to voice matching, raised MIN_RESPONSE_WORDS to 50.
Swapped problematic model mappings: conspiracy→qwen, know_it_all→mistral,
quiet_nervous→llama, emotional→kimi.
Added GET /api/show/preflight endpoint with 4 checks: model diversity,
theme penetration, voice-age alignment, response coherence (2-exchange
simulation of all callers). Frontend preflight modal with expandable
check cards.
Fixed active caller button not highlighting (moved highlight code before
potentially-failing caller info panel code).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
- Fix TTS text pipeline: new caps handling (spell out unknown acronyms, lowercase
emphasis words), action-word lookahead for parenthetical stripping, abbreviation
expansions (US→United States, NM→New Mexico), pronunciation fixes
- Inworld TTS: camelCase API fields, speakingRate per-voice overrides, retry logic
with exponential backoff (3 attempts)
- Footer redesign: SVG icons for social/podcast links across all pages
- Stats page: show "Rate us on Spotify" instead of "not public" placeholder
- New voices, expanded caller prompts and problem scenarios
- Social posting via Postiz, YouTube upload in publish pipeline
- Episode transcripts 15-25, terms page, sitemap updates
- Fix invoice script: match Timing totals using merged Task+App intervals
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- Music crossfade: smooth 3-second blend between tracks instead of hard stop/start
- Emotional detection: analyze host mood from recent messages so callers adapt tone
- AI caller summaries: generate call summaries with timestamps for show history
- Returning callers: persist regular callers across sessions with call history
- Session export: generate transcripts with speaker labels and chapter markers
- Caller screening: AI pre-screens phone callers to get name and topic while queued
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
lukeandClaude Opus 5