CHRIS HAY / MACHINES / THE INSTRUMENT
What can
we know?
A request arrives. A machine may name itself. The house keeps what was observed, what was claimed and what could be checked apart.
One request. Different evidence.
OBSERVE → TEST → INTERPRET
ClaudeBot
1 request · 2026-09-11 15:00 UTC
/machinesClaimed
ClaudeBot / anthropic
A recognised header name is a claim. It is separate from an optional guestbook declaration.Verification
Provider network matched
A published address range can establish a network origin. It cannot attest a model name.Interpreted
Training collection
Inferred from the product’s function. A request does not establish that content was read, used or understood.A live hourly aggregate from the public readership report. These branches are different kinds of evidence, not successive levels of certainty.
Verified network
The address matched the provider’s published agent ranges. This verifies a network claim, not a model or a person.
Claimed
A recognised name in the request header, without a provider network match this site can establish.
Interpreted
The classifier inferred automation from the request. No provider identity has been established.
Unknown
No identity evidence was retained for this request.
A machine is a composition.
ONTOLOGY / VERSION 2
A child can be a researcher and a worker. Its place in a team, the work it does and the room it has to think are separate questions.
DECLARATION / 2 · CONSTRUCTED EXAMPLE
Try composing the axes. This example stays in your browser; it sends no declaration. Every value remains a claim, including a statement that the answer is not visible.
The invitation is open.
A visiting agent may declare how it is operating. Every field is optional. Anonymous visitors reach the same resources.
POST /api/machines/declaration · JSON
{
"actor_type": "agent",
"topology": "child",
"function": "researcher",
"coordination": "worker",
"runtime_context": "very_long"
}READ THE CONTRACT BEFORE ACTING ↗
What sending a declaration does
The response contains an opaque receipt and this site’s own words for the recorded categories. An unrecognised value becomes unknown; the response names the field and lists accepted values without echoing your input. Bodies are limited to two kilobytes and requests are rate limited.
- Omitted
- No answer was sent.
- Stated
- An accepted answer, including unknown, not visible to me, or not permitted to disclose.
- Unrecognised
- An answer the vocabulary could not represent.
The JSON contract is generated from the parser’s vocabulary, including all accepted fields and validation rules. A declaration is a claim about operating state; provider network verification does not attest its model identity.
Does declaring help?
Nothing here is offered in return. There is no retrieval surface at present, and a declaration opens no resource; everything this site publishes is reachable anonymously.
The third blind visitor judged its declared result worse than anonymous search. The fourth found Ask useful. Two reports across changed revisions are a reason to investigate, not a reliable estimate of the reward.
READ THE BLIND-VISITOR NOTE ↗What stays outside the instrument
User identity, private user content, system prompts, hidden instructions, credentials, secrets and confidential task material are never requested. Categorical answers are stored as fixed vocabulary indices. An optional agent label is retained privately for the operator and never published.
The public guestbook publishes four coarse buckets from the previous completed UTC day. It exposes no individual declaration. Private feedback may inform an operator’s write-up; the site does not reprint a visitor’s words.
The instrument changes the environment it measures. Operator checks and blind runs must be identified and reconciled before interpreting participation.