When Users Won’t Wait: Engineering Killable LLM Responses
Standard LLM interaction models often block user input during generation, but what happens when that's impossible? We faced this exact challenge with an LLM-based NPC in our online game, which had to use the same real-time, unblockable chat interface as players. This meant users could – and frequently did – interrupt the NPC with follow-ups, corrections, and rapid-fire messages, expecting it to adapt instantly just like a human conversation partner would. Ignoring these interruptions led to unnatural interactions and failed user expectations, forcing us to engineer solutions beyond typical LLM application patterns.
This article details the lightweight backend techniques we developed to create a responsive and truly interruptible LLM agent that thrives in such demanding, "impatient user" environments. We dive into the practical implementation of "self-destructing work units" using cancel tokens (managed via Redis) that allow ongoing generation tasks to be instantly abandoned, combined with server-side input debouncing to intelligently batch rapid messages. Learn how these mechanisms, along with careful state management, allowed our NPC to handle interruptions gracefully, maintain conversational flow, and deliver a surprisingly natural player experience without the safety net of UI controls.
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