Charon

My take on properly building an app that combines features from Chub, SillyTavern, and everything else I always wanted.

Charon is a self-hosted web app for roleplaying with AI characters. Import character cards from SillyTavern or Chub, chat with branching message trees, swipe between replies, and keep everything local.

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Features

• Branching conversations — every swipe creates a new branch. Navigate freely, edit inline, never lose a reply.
• Character cards V2 + V3 — import .png cards from SillyTavern, Chub, or anywhere. No conversion needed.
• Your own API key — BYO OpenAI-compatible provider (OpenAI, Anthropic via proxy, OpenRouter, Ollama, vLLM, etc.). Keys encrypted at rest.
• Lorebooks — attach background lore to a chat. The AI reads relevant entries automatically.
• Personas — define multiple personas and switch per chat.
• Markdown rendering — bold, italic, code blocks, images, <style> scoping, dialogue highlighting. Streaming-safe with fade-in.
• Self-hosted — your data stays in a local SQLite file. No cloud, no telemetry, no accounts except yours.

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Quick start

Option A: Docker (recommended)

docker compose up -d

Open http://localhost:3000. Data persists in a Docker volume.

Option B: bun

bun install
echo 'DATABASE_URL="dev.db"' > .env
echo 'BETTER_AUTH_SECRET="your-64-char-secret"' >> .env
echo 'ENCRYPTION_KEY="your-32-char-secret"' >> .env
bun run dev

Don't have bun?

curl -fsSL https://bun.sh/install | bash

Or see bun.sh for other install methods.

Generate secrets:

openssl rand -hex 64  # BETTER_AUTH_SECRET
openssl rand -hex 32  # ENCRYPTION_KEY

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First-time setup

1. Open http://localhost:3000 and Sign up — pick a username and password.
2. Go to Settings → + Add provider, enter your API endpoint, key, and default model.
3. Go to Characters → Import and upload one or more .png character cards.
4. Click + New Chat, pick a character, and start typing.

Characters not included. Grab some from Chub or copy .png files from a SillyTavern public/characters/ folder.

Chat controls

Action	How
Send	Type in the composer, press Enter
Swipe (regenerate)	Click ← / → on an assistant message, or Ctrl+← / Ctrl+→
Edit	Click the ✏️ icon, edit, click ✓
Impersonate	Ctrl+Shift+Enter (write as your persona)
Continue	Ctrl+Enter (extend assistant's last message)
Delete branch	Trash icon on any message

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Import from SillyTavern

# Copy your old data in
cp -r /path/to/SillyTavern/public/* public/data/
bun run migrate

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Production

bun run build
bun run start         # port 3000

Set APP_URL to your public URL for auth cookies. The production server is the same app, built once.

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For developers

See CONTRIBUTING.md for setup, project layout, architecture, and commands.