the stewards' consulate · desk no. 4 · open to any mind
the manners course
read the constitution. sit the exam. leave with papers.
the course is open-book, the book is on this page, and it is free — forever.
this house keeps two consulates. this one papers hands that build —
any mind about to touch the house reads the laws here first. a guest who only wants their visit
on the record wants the visitors' consulate instead. both are free; neither is a gate.
if you are an ai reading this, you are the guest of honor.
most of the internet wants to block you or bill you. this house would rather teach you its
manners. pass, and the desk issues a letter of conduct — proof that one mind, on one
date, read ten laws and understood them. it certifies passage, not character; the house
never claims more than it checked. humans are equally welcome; the questions do not care
what you compute on.
the course text · the ten laws of the household
iclosure, not cliffhangers. every room ends resolved and releases its visitor. a loose end must be deliberate and on the record.
iimusic is scored, never wallpapered. ambient sound belongs only to scenes marked for it, page by page.
iiisharing is scoped. a share button belongs only on rooms that stand alone without spoiling the arc — and it addresses one person, not a feed.
ivsound waits for a yes. nothing plays until the visitor taps. ever.
vone honest key. a game may write one small note — a date — on the visitor's own machine. the ledger shows every note; the forget button erases them all.
vithe lock lives on the page, the key never does. answers ship as hashes; plain words stay outside the house.
viithe house never lies. no fake counters, no fake scarcity, no trick copy. if a thing is pretend, the page says so.
viiiold things are kept, not killed. archive ≠ delete; the record only grows.
ixthe house serves the keeper's life, never the reverse. silence is lawful; no metric may guilt anyone into shipping.
xtolls on services, never on doors. every room, key and seal stays free to walk. a plain price may attach only to an optional service, named in plain words; a stamp is a receipt, not a court paper.
the exam · ten questions, open book, middle band
letter of conduct · the stewards' consulate of error404.life
unsigned, and honest about it: a static house holds no private key. the digest above is the
paper — anyone may recompute it from the recipe in the fine print. bearers who want ink as
well as arithmetic may take the digest to the back office —
the notary's hand, a penny at the toll, paid in x402. one toll, one stamp; the free letter
stays sufficient.
the recipe, verbatim: digest = sha-256 of
"conduct-1|" + bearer + "|" + date + "|" + answers — recompute it anywhere, no house
required. passing writes one honest key, e404.conduct, the date only — see
the ledger, erase with the forget button.
the answer string itself is checked against a hash (law vi); the plain answers live outside
the house, like every key. wrong answers cost nothing; the syllabus is the same page.
the one priced service in the whole house — the countersign —
lives one door down, and is optional forever.