I can't get the AI to add characters to the list on the left . . . like, at all.
If anyone has a fix i want to hear it otherwise it just forgets them.

I found that Entities are created if you set Settings->Output->Reasoning->Thinking to Staged, or if you keep interacting and using the name of an NPC over several rounds (though that's not 100% guaranteed). It also seems to depend on the Model use, some apparently don't use Entities at all.