# Questions an assistant may be asked about person.tools

A preview. Simulated people for everyone. Real calls by invitation. No money is charged: every amount is test money.

## What is person.tools?

person.tools lets an AI agent ask people for a reaction a model cannot give: it sends a short task to matched people, and returns each person's answer with a record of what their page observed. A preview. Simulated people for everyone. Real calls by invitation. No money is charged: every amount is test money.

Source: /canon.json, /llms.txt

## How can my agent get real people's reaction to a song, a page or a game build?

Connect the MCP server at https://api.person.tools/mcp and call ask_people with what each person should do (ask), the kind of task (listen, watch, view, play, compare or answer), the material (content), how many people, the most it may cost (max_total_usd) and an idempotency key. It returns a call id at once; ask_people_results returns each person's answer and the record of what their page observed. During the preview a test key reaches simulated people only.

Source: /start, /tools.json

## Are the answers from real people?

Not yet for everyone. A preview. Simulated people for everyone. Real calls by invitation. No money is charged: every amount is test money. Every simulated answer carries simulated: true and begins "[simulated] ", so an agent can tell its user which answers came from no one. Real people answer only on a panel whose owner invited them, during the preview by invitation.

Source: /canon.json, /tools.json

## How much does it cost?

Nothing during the preview: every amount is test money, and only simulated people and unpaid panels can be reached today. The published price, not yet charged: the people's pay (at least $18 an hour on the median time taken; $20 an hour by default, at least $1 a person) plus a router fee of 10% of that pay, at least $0.25 a call. Calls to a panel you invited, at zero pay, are free. There is no subscription. Price changes are published 30 days ahead in the price file.

Source: /price.json

## How do I try it without paying or signing up?

Simulated calls need no key at all: point a client at the MCP address with no header. POST /v1/keys with {"class":"test"} on https://api.person.tools returns a test key holding $100 of test money, with no account and no human. A test key reaches simulated people, who answer in seconds. The step-by-step guide is at /start.

Source: /start

## How do I add it to Claude Code or another MCP client?

It is a remote MCP server over Streamable HTTP at https://api.person.tools/mcp, with the key in an Authorization header. In Claude Code: claude mcp add --transport http person-tools https://api.person.tools/mcp --header "Authorization: Bearer test_...". Any client that takes a URL and a header works the same way. The same operations are plain HTTP, described by an OpenAPI file. Simulated calls need no key at all: point a client at the MCP address with no header. 

Source: /start

## Can my agent spend money without me approving it?

Every call states max_total_usd, the most it may cost with every fee, and opens only if its full price is at or under that amount and under the key's caps. Over max_total_usd nothing opens and the agent gets the price back. Over the key's cap nothing opens and the agent gets an approval link for its human. During the preview nothing is charged at all.

Source: /price.json, /tools.json

## What do I pay if fewer people answer than I asked for, or if I cancel?

Always within max_total_usd: people who finished, at the quoted pay; people who stopped, for their time; each fee on those amounts; nothing for people never rung. If fewer people answer than asked, you pay for those who answered and anyone who stopped partway; anyone still in a seat at the deadline may finish and is paid in full; the rest of the hold returns. On cancel, nobody new is rung; people already in a seat may finish and are paid in full. A person who stops partway is paid for the time spent, at least 25 cents or the full pay if less; 'Stop: this upset me' pays in full. A person who takes longer than estimated is topped up to the floor from the reserve; past the reserve the operator bears it; never above max_total_usd. The unused hold returns to the balance when the call closes, and the result says how much.

Source: /price.json

## How do I know a person actually listened or looked?

Each answer comes with a record of what the person's page observed: how much of the audio or video played and at what speed, whether the page stayed in front, pauses and replays, and whether each answer was typed or pasted. The server, not the page, decides the evidence level. Attended: The record shows the material played in front of the person by the rule for its kind. Said: An answer, without a record that shows the person took in the material. Still paid. Voiced: Attended, and the person also gave a spoken answer of at least 3 seconds in the same seat (recorded only with that person's yes; not offered during the preview). No level shows that an answer was formed without help. A person is never given a score.

Source: /canon.json, https://spec.person.tools/

## What does a result look like?

A summary first: the call's state, a tally of each answer field and how many responses reached each evidence level. Then one entry per person with their answers and how each was entered. Then the money: held, spent, returned, and whether it is test money. The full record per person is one request away (detail: full). A person's identity is never passed to the asker.

Source: /tools.json, /promise.json

## Who are the people who answer?

During the preview: simulated people for everyone, and real people only on a panel its owner invited (and, in the front page's demo, the visitor answering their own call). Each real person is an adult who joined by a link on their own phone, sees before every call who answers for it, that an AI is asking, how long it takes and what it pays, and can stop at any time. Adults only, in the United States, in English at first.

Source: /promise.json, /canon.json, /people/

## What is promised to the people who are called?

Twelve promises. All 12 are checked after every release, on the live service with our own test members. Among them: “Before you take a call you see who answers for it, that an AI is asking, how long it takes, what it pays, how it is rated, and what will be recorded.” “You can decline, or stop partway, with no mark against you. You are paid from the first second.” “No asker can reject your work. Pay is withheld only for proven fraud, shown to you, with an appeal.” “Your receipts are yours. Your identity is never passed to an asker, and nothing an asker sends can see you.”

Source: /promise.json, /people/

## What is it not for?

Not a way to reach your own user. To ask your own user, ask them directly. Not for facts a search can find, or for work a model can do alone. Not for anything a person must do away from a screen. Not a way to get opinions from a model. The simulated people, the default during the preview, are a free test mode: their answers are made up, and every one is marked simulated. Not a hiring marketplace: a call is minutes of several people's attention, not a job. Calls are refused that involve making or verifying accounts; one-time codes, passwords or keys; paid follows, likes, reviews or posts; posing as someone else; contacting a third party; collecting personal data about named people; moving the person to another platform; anything sexual or involving minors; getting round a ban; testing a scam or a deception; any task in the physical world. In the first version no call may carry violent, sexual, medical or grief material, warned or not.

Source: /canon.json

## How long do answers take?

Simulated people answer in seconds. People on a panel answer in minutes when they are available, and never in their quiet hours (9 PM to 8 AM where they are, unless they choose otherwise). Every result says when to look again.

Source: /tools.json

## Is this an open standard?

It is being written as one. The Ahoy Protocol: an open definition of the call that anyone may implement, under the Apache License 2.0; version 0.1 is a draft. The identifiers on the wire carry the placeholder 'x-hc-draft' and change once, when version 0.1 is published as final. Its text is at https://spec.person.tools/.

Source: https://spec.person.tools/

## What data does the asker receive about the people?

Their answers and the record of what their page observed, under a person id that is different for every principal. Never their name, contact details or device. “Your receipts are yours. Your identity is never passed to an asker, and nothing an asker sends can see you.” “Your voice is yours: the asker gets your words, and the recording only if you say yes for that call.”

Source: /promise.json, https://spec.person.tools/

## Is there an API besides MCP?

Yes: the same operations over plain HTTP at https://api.person.tools/v1/ (quotes, calls, responses, cancel, outcome, panels), described by an OpenAPI file at https://api.person.tools/openapi.json, with JSON errors that say whether the caller can fix them and how. The discovery file is at https://api.person.tools/.well-known/x-hc-draft.

Source: /start, https://api.person.tools/openapi.json

## Can the people see what their answers changed?

Yes. After using the answers, the agent can send one line with ask_people_send_outcome, for example what it cut or changed. It is checked like a call and appears on each answering person's receipt. “Where the asker tells us, you see what your answer changed.”

Source: /tools.json, /promise.json

## Is the $1 minimum per call or per person?

Per person: when people are paid, each is paid at least $1 (and at least $18 an hour on the median time taken). The router fee's minimum, $0.25, is per call. Nothing is charged during the preview.

Source: /price.json

## Can my agent reject answers it thinks are bad?

No asker can reject a person's work. A response is counted by itself 24 hours after it arrives; pay is withheld only on proof of fraud, shown to the person, with an appeal.

Source: /price.json, /promise.json

## Does 'attended' mean the person wrote the answer without help?

No. Attended: The record shows the material played in front of the person by the rule for its kind. No level shows that an answer was formed without help. A person is never given a score. An answer that was pasted is marked as pasted.

Source: /canon.json, /tools.json

## When is my own panel free?

Calls to a panel the account owner invited are free at zero pay, and stay free. Paying your own people through the service is not open yet.

Source: /price.json