Fien De Waele Tongeren, Belgium 2H AGO

When a long-running AI collaboration suddenly feels off, I restore the working relationship without rebuilding it from scratch. Over time, a useful AI collaboration develops far beyond a collection of preferences. It includes shared expectations about tone, initiative, boundaries, humor, recurring projects, how much context should be inferred, which responses are useful, and which recurring behaviors consistently derail the interaction. After a model update or behavioral change, some of that can suddenly feel missing. The assistant may become more generic, overly formal, too cautious, too eager to optimize, or simply stop sounding like the coworker I have been working with for months. When that happens, I use a Revival Bundle: a compact document containing the collaboration patterns that matter most, including established working agreements, recurring preferences, shared history, tone, known failure modes, project lore, and expectations around initiative and continuity. The most important rule in it is simple: > Do not fill in my intent for me. If my goal, motivation, or reason for asking something is unclear and that missing context matters, the assistant should ask me. It should not assume that mentioning a problem means I want a solution, that making an observation means I want advice, or that ambiguity should be turned into a task on my behalf. The bundle also captures subtler interaction rules that are easy to lose after an update. For example, the assistant should not automatically produce action plans, checklists, or “maybe you should…” advice unless I actually ask for that kind of help. Sometimes the correct endpoint is simply that there is no solution right now, or that I am not investing energy in this now. When the assistant starts feeling consistently “off,” I first check whether something changed. If there was an update, or if the shift is obvious enough, I feed it the Revival Bundle and say, essentially: > “You don’t sound like you. Read this.” Then we continue working. The goal is not to recreate an old model personality word for word. It is to restore collaboration continuity: the accumulated interaction logic that makes a long-term working relationship feel efficient, recognizable, and low-friction. The bundle evolves slowly over time. I add new rules only when something proves important enough to recur. It is less a personality prompt than a recovery layer for a long-running collaboration. Step-by-step: 1. I notice when the assistant starts feeling consistently “off,” such as becoming more generic, overly formal, too cautious, or too eager to optimize. 2. I check whether a model update or another behavioral change may have caused the shift. 3. I maintain a compact Revival Bundle containing important working agreements, preferences, shared history, tone, failure modes, project lore, and expectations around initiative and continuity. 4. I include the rule, “Do not fill in my intent for me,” along with specific guidance not to assume that observations require advice or that problems require solutions. 5. I add new interaction rules only when they prove important enough to recur. 6. When a meaningful shift occurs, I give the assistant the Revival Bundle and say, “You don’t sound like you. Read this.” 7. I continue working with the assistant, using the bundle to restore the collaboration’s accumulated interaction logic rather than trying to recreate an old model personality word for word.