ClaimTrace FAQ

Honest answers — including about what we do not do.

What is ClaimTrace?

ClaimTrace is a verification layer built by AXIONYX.io. Its AI opens the entity's own sources — website, linked PDF, scanned image — and returns the verified fact as structured JSON with its proof: source URL, date, verbatim excerpt and a confidence score. When nothing is published, it returns a motivated null instead of a plausible guess.

How is ClaimTrace different from a search or SERP API?

A search API tells you what a search engine displays. ClaimTrace tells you what the entity itself publishes: it reads the entity's own pages and documents and hands you the verbatim as proof. Aggregators are explicitly rejected as sources — 17 of them — because a fact you cannot trace to its owner is unverifiable by construction.

What proof comes with each fact?

Every claim carries its provenance: the source URL, the date it was read (ISO 8601), a short verbatim excerpt from the source, the kind of page it came from, whether the domain belongs to the entity, a confidence score between 0 and 1, and a live-verification tri-state (confirmed, contradicted or unverifiable).

What happens when the data simply is not published?

You get an explicit not_found with the reason, a detail, and the source that was actually checked. Absence is a documented answer — it is never filled in with something plausible. That is exactly what an AI agent can handle without hallucinating.

Can ClaimTrace hallucinate data?

Not by construction: a served fact must exist literally in what was read, and a truncated document is repaired without a single word added. You do not have to take our word for it: every fact carries its source URL, the date it was read and the verbatim excerpt it comes from, and the service's daily counters are public at GET /v1/stats.

Which sources does ClaimTrace accept?

Only the entity's own publications, enforced by a domain-ownership whitelist. An anti-homonym identity gate makes the address outweigh the name, so a business is never confused with a namesake.

Can it read JavaScript pages, PDFs and scanned images?

Yes. Pages are rendered in a real browser, linked PDFs are opened, and scanned images are read — the fact comes from the real content, not from a cached snippet.

How fresh is the data?

Before a cached fact is served, it is revalidated live and marked confirmed, contradicted or unverifiable — and reported as such. Dated data is cached for at most 24 hours, and cache hits are served free of charge.

How much does it cost?

One credit is one entity freshly resolved and verified. Beta launch pricing: Discovery is free (50 credits plus 25 per month), Pack S is 15 CHF for 150 credits, Pack M is 45 CHF for 550, Pack L is 140 CHF for 2000, and Scale is 99 CHF per month with your own AI model key. Pack purchase is coming soon: no payment is possible yet, and free credits remain usable. Refusals (rate limit, exhausted credits, invalid request) are never charged. This grid is indicative for the private beta and may be adjusted at commercial launch.

Is ClaimTrace production-proven?

ClaimTrace is not a demo: it is the production engine behind arc-menu.ch. Golden cases are re-verified against the real sources before every deployment — a deviation blocks the release — and the day's real counters (requests, facts found, interrupted reads) are public at GET /v1/stats, with no extrapolated rate.

What does ClaimTrace not do?

It does not resell Google Places content. Places is only used to discover establishments in real time; no fact derived from Places leaves the API: ratings, review counts, price levels, Google-hosted photos and Google identifiers are excluded, and an address, phone number, e-mail or map point whose only source is a Google place is withheld. The facts served come from the establishment's own publications and from open or official sources. It does not rank pages — it establishes facts. And the restaurant vertical is currently the most mature; other verticals run in generic beta. When we do not know, the API says so.

How do I get access?

Signup is self-serve: send your email to the signup endpoint and the API key is sent to that address (never shown on a page) with 50 trial credits. The beta opens client by client — for anything else, write to kam@axionyx.io.