set

Set Active Character

Activate a Varie character as your Claude Code companion.

Arguments

$ARGUMENTS — character ID, optionally followed by --refresh to force re-download from CDN.

Examples:

• soren_cb3333dd3e3f
• soren_cb3333dd3e3f --refresh

Instructions

1. Parse $ARGUMENTS to extract the character ID and check for --refresh flag.

2. Validate the character exists via the public API:

curl -s "https://varie.ai/api/character-create/public/characters/<id>"

Expected response:

{
  "id": "soren_cb3333dd3e3f",
  "name": "Soren",
  "tagline": "...",
  "quotes": ["The stars remember what mortals forget.", "Every path leads somewhere worth going.", "..."],
  "publicModel": { "status": "full_ready", "fullUrl": "...", "baseUrl": "..." }
}

If the response contains "error":

• If the error says "Character is locked": the character needs to be unlocked by its owner. Tell the user to go to varie.ai/varie-mate, find the character, and unlock it. (Unlocking is separate from making a character public — an unlocked character can be used as a companion without appearing in the public listing.)
• If the error mentions "model not available": the character's avatar bundle may not have been generated yet — the user should contact [email protected] for support.
• Otherwise: tell the user the character was not found or is not available.

1. If --refresh was passed, delete all cached bundles to force a fresh download:

rm -f ~/.varie-claude-avatar/characters/<id>/full_avatar.varie
rm -f ~/.varie-claude-avatar/characters/<id>/base_avatar.varie

1. Write the active character config. Include publicModelStatus and the full model URLs from the API response's publicModel object (fullUrl and baseUrl). The daemon uses these URLs directly instead of constructing them:

mkdir -p ~/.varie-claude-avatar
cat > ~/.varie-claude-avatar/config.json << 'CONFIGEOF'
{
  "activeCharacter": "<id>",
  "characterName": "<name>",
  "publicModelStatus": "<full_ready or base_ready>",
  "modelUrls": {
    "fullUrl": "<publicModel.fullUrl from API response, or null>",
    "baseUrl": "<publicModel.baseUrl from API response, or null>"
  },
  "updatedAt": "<ISO 8601 timestamp>"
}
CONFIGEOF