Palimpsest — censorship, China economy and model-eval observatory

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

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What it can do

    What data it sees

    Do you need an account

    No: the server works without sign-in

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

    How to connect

    How to connect Palimpsest — censorship, China economy and model-eval observatory to Claude

    The server address to paste into Claude settings:

    https://api.seiche.info/palimpsest/mcp

    1. Open Claude (claude.ai or the desktop app).
    2. Go to Settings → Connectors.
    3. Click Add custom connector.
    4. Paste the server address copied below into Remote MCP server URL and click Add.
    5. In a chat, click + → Connectors and switch the new connector on.

    Custom connectors are available on Free, Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans (Free is limited to one). On Team and Enterprise an organization Owner adds the connector first under Organization settings → Connectors.

    Authorization

    After you click Add, a sign-in window for the service opens. Sign in with your own account and approve access. Claude never sees your password.

    How to connect Palimpsest — censorship, China economy and model-eval observatory to ChatGPT

    The server address to paste into ChatGPT settings:

    https://api.seiche.info/palimpsest/mcp

    1. Open ChatGPT in a browser (chatgpt.com). A Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise or Edu plan is required.
    2. Turn on developer mode once: Settings → Apps → Advanced settings → Developer mode.
    3. Open Settings → Connectors and click Create.
    4. Fill in the form: Name (anything), Description (one line about what the service does), MCP server URL (copy it below).
    5. Under Authentication choose OAuth if the service requires sign-in, otherwise None. Click Create.
    6. In a new chat open + → Apps/Connectors and enable the connector.

    OpenAI has renamed this section before (Connectors → Apps/Plugins). If the label differs, search settings for "developer mode". On Business/Enterprise workspaces an admin must allow custom connectors first.

    Authorization

    On first use ChatGPT opens the service's sign-in window. Sign in and approve access.

    How to connect Palimpsest — censorship, China economy and model-eval observatory to Cursor

    The server address to paste into Cursor settings:

    https://api.seiche.info/palimpsest/mcp

    Fastest: click Open in Cursor below and confirm the prompt.

    Manually:

    1. In Cursor open Settings → Cursor Settings → MCP and click Add new global MCP server.
    2. Paste the JSON copied below into ~/.cursor/mcp.json (per project: .cursor/mcp.json in the repo root).
    3. Save the file. The server appears in the MCP list; authorize it there if asked.

    Authorization

    If the service needs sign-in, an authorize button appears next to the server in the MCP list.

    Server tool list (7)

    Raw names from tools/list. Only developers need these.

    research_catalogDiscover 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.
    list_signalsList 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.
    get_signalRead 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.
    get_newsroomRead 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.
    query_economic_observationsInspect 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.
    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-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'.
    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) 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'.