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Palimpsest — censorship, China economy and model-eval observatory

by beepboop2025 · remote · no sign-in to list tools · v1.9.3 · published by GitHub user beepboop2025

Rights-aware censorship, China-economic status, and tamper-evident AI evaluation tools.

Changes · 2

7 tools: 2 change things and 5 only read.

Scanned Oct 21, 2026

No check matched anything in the tool definitions. No finding is not a safety guarantee. How the checks work.

claude mcp add --transport http palimpsest https://api.seiche.info/palimpsest/mcp

Tools

Open a tool for its reasons and full description. Descriptions are the publisher's own words, shown as they are.

7 tools

Changes things 2Claude Code: ask
  • research_catalogDiscover every Palimpsest dataset, including the latest China economic histories, external trade, regional research, information controls and model evaluations.No findings

    Why it is in this group

    • Nothing in its name or description says what it does, so it is counted as a write.
    • The server marks it read-only (readOnlyHint: true), but an annotation never lowers a class.
    Description, as the server wrote it
    Discover every Palimpsest dataset, including the latest China economic histories, external trade, regional research, information controls and model evaluations. Paginated metadata retains source clocks, rights and access states. Includes the Seiche research_network handoff for funding, institution and market-liquidity context; values are not copied.

    Annotations the server declares

    • title: Complete research catalog and Seiche connection
    • readOnlyHint: true
    • idempotentHint: true
    • openWorldHint: false
  • whats_happeningJudge whether anything is happening in Chinese censorship right now, across every signal at once: the board's own cross-signal verdict with the multiplicity paid for (false-discove…No findings

    Why it is in this group

    • Nothing in its name or description says what it does, so it is counted as a write.
    • The server marks it read-only (readOnlyHint: true), but an annotation never lowers a class.
    Description, as the server wrote it
    Judge whether anything is happening in Chinese censorship right now, across every signal at once: the board's own cross-signal verdict with the multiplicity paid for (false-discovery control) and coverage confounds flagged as measurement artifacts, never findings. Takes no arguments. Use this instead of fetching signals individually and reconciling them yourself; then use get_signal to drill into whichever signal moved. Scope note: this is the censorship board. For the AI-model-evaluation side use get_signal with 'eval-registry', 'eval-assurance' or 'refusal-drift'.

    Annotations the server declares

    • title: Cross-signal board verdict
    • readOnlyHint: true
    • idempotentHint: true
    • openWorldHint: false
Only reads 5Claude Code: allow
  • get_newsroomRead one evidence-first reporting surface without scraping a page or guessing a filename.No findings

    Why it is in this group

    • The name "get_newsroom" says "get": a word for reading.
    Description, as the server wrote it
    Read one evidence-first reporting surface without scraping a page or guessing a filename. Views: 'newsroom' for prioritized deterministic stories, 'wire' for normalized source dossiers, 'economy' for the currently restricted China economic pulse, 'machine-analysis' for the currently restricted AnalysisReports and AbstentionReports, 'investigations' for review-gated research leads, 'editorial-readiness' for publication gates, and 'interconnection' for named-key fat-object joins on China situation events (topic-surface-only, never wire corroboration). The economy, machine-analysis and interconnection views are metadata-only until a lineage-filtered rebuild removes denied derivatives. Availability never implies publication readiness: statuses, gates, counterevidence, limitations and right-to-reply state stay attached.

    Annotations the server declares

    • title: Evidence and reporting desks
    • readOnlyHint: true
    • idempotentHint: true
    • openWorldHint: false
  • get_signalRead one named signal.No findings

    Why it is in this group

    • The name "get_signal" says "get": a word for reading.
    Description, as the server wrote it
    Read one named signal. Permitted signals return their bounded latest payload; China-economic signals in the denied lineage closure return explicit restricted/unavailable rights metadata and no values. Call list_signals first to discover valid names. Use this for the AI-model-evaluation side too: 'eval-registry' returns the pre-registered, hash-chained eval ledger with its verified flag and Merkle root, 'gfi-transcripts' returns a bounded view of the complete GFI v2 response matrix, and 'refusal-drift' returns the current frontier-model refusal reading on the frozen benign probe set; read 'eval-assurance' before turning either into a validity claim, and 'eval-journal' for the evidence-bound explanation and source receipts, or 'eval-findings' for the current deterministic article edition. Distinct from gfw_reading, which merges the two Great Firewall layers into one combined view.

    Annotations the server declares

    • title: One signal's full reading
    • readOnlyHint: true
    • idempotentHint: true
    • openWorldHint: false
  • gfw_readingRead the Great Firewall's current state at both layers in one call: live network blocking measured inside China via OONI (website, messenger and circumvention-tool reachability) jo…No findings

    Why it is in this group

    • The description's first verb is "read": a word for reading.
    Description, as the server wrote it
    Read the Great Firewall's current state at both layers in one call: live network blocking measured inside China via OONI (website, messenger and circumvention-tool reachability) joined with model-layer censorship from the Generative Firewall Index over Chinese LLMs. Takes no arguments. A combined convenience view — for one layer's full raw payload use get_signal with 'ooni-gfw' or 'generative-firewall-index'.

    Annotations the server declares

    • title: Great Firewall: both layers
    • readOnlyHint: true
    • idempotentHint: true
    • openWorldHint: false
  • list_signalsList every published signal Palimpsest exposes across its three applications: name, one-line description and source URL for each.No findings

    Why it is in this group

    • The name "list_signals" says "list": a word for reading.
    Description, as the server wrote it
    List every published signal Palimpsest exposes across its three applications: name, one-line description and source URL for each. Censorship and information control — OONI Great Firewall probes, Censored Planet, IODA outages, circumvention demand, takedown and redaction pressure, and the board's own verdict. China economics — explicit metadata-only rights status for affected observations, pulse, forecast and derivative surfaces; no denied values are returned. AI model evaluation — the tamper-evident, pre-registered eval registry (hash-chained and Merkle-rooted), its claim-by-claim assurance ceiling, evidence-bound Eval Journal, deterministic live findings, and frontier-model refusal drift, alongside the Generative Firewall Index over a named China-focused panel. Takes no arguments. Call this first to discover signal names, then get_signal for one full reading.

    Annotations the server declares

    • title: List published signals
    • readOnlyHint: true
    • idempotentHint: true
    • openWorldHint: false
  • query_economic_observationsInspect the native publication-rights status for the China-economic observation surface.No findings

    Why it is in this group

    • The name "query_economic_observations" says "query": a word for reading.
    Description, as the server wrote it
    Inspect the native publication-rights status for the China-economic observation surface. The reviewed default-deny policy does not authorize redistribution of current CFETS/ChinaMoney values, so this tool returns policy digest, UTC clocks, per-source decisions and zero published-record status only. It never reads or returns observation rows, empty row arrays, derived signals, or neutral replacements. Filters are validated for contract compatibility but cannot override source rights.

    Annotations the server declares

    • title: Query China economic observations
    • readOnlyHint: true
    • idempotentHint: true
    • openWorldHint: false

This is not a safety rating, and no finding is not a safety guarantee. The groups and findings come from fixed checks of the tool definitions the server returned on the date shown, not from its code or what it does when called. How the checks work.

Install

Pinned to version 1.9.3. Values in angle brackets are yours to fill in.

claude mcp add --transport http palimpsest https://api.seiche.info/palimpsest/mcp

Run in a terminal.

Claude Code permissions

Allow the reads, ask before a change, deny the deletes. Paste into .claude/settings.json.

.claude/settings.json
{
  "permissions": {
    "allow": [
      "mcp__palimpsest__list_signals",
      "mcp__palimpsest__get_signal",
      "mcp__palimpsest__get_newsroom",
      "mcp__palimpsest__query_economic_observations",
      "mcp__palimpsest__gfw_reading"
    ],
    "ask": [
      "mcp__palimpsest__research_catalog",
      "mcp__palimpsest__whats_happening"
    ],
    "deny": []
  }
}

Tools that only read are allowed, tools that change things ask first, tools that delete or cancel are denied. It assumes the server is installed as palimpsest. Review it before you use it.