The Curious Claude Method

The Experiment Card

Every Curious Claude protocol starts with an experiment card. The card names the question, the Claude surface, the model ID, the date, the prompt, the fixtures, the allowed tools or source documents, the scoring rule, and the evidence bundle. If any field is missing, the writeup can still be a note, but it is not a result.

The card prevents a common failure: changing many things at once and then narrating the outcome as if one variable caused it. A Claude experiment should make the variable visible before the run starts.

• Question: the narrow behavior being tested.
• Variable: the one thing that changes between conditions.
• Controls: model, fixture, prompt shell, tools, sources, and scoring.
• Evidence: raw output, logs, citations, tool calls, and scorer notes.

Source State

Claude experiments drift because the platform moves. Anthropic publishes model docs, release notes, system cards, and transparency summaries; those sources should be linked from the experiment when a claim depends on current model behavior.

Record source access dates and, when possible, quote only a short anchor phrase. The point is not to copy documentation. The point is to make the experiment inspectable by a future reader.

Fixtures

A fixture is the input case used to test the behavior. Good fixture sets include normal cases, edge cases, a boring control, and an impossible or unsupported case. The impossible case is essential because it tests whether Claude can decline to infer from missing evidence.

When fixtures contain private or copyrighted material, publish metadata, hashes, and substitute examples rather than the private content itself.

Scoring

Scoring should be written before the outputs are read. A rubric can be qualitative, but it must be consistent. Anthropic explicitly allows well-defined qualitative scales in evaluation guidance; the key is that scorers know what counts before seeing the answer.

Separate dimensions that fail independently: answer correctness, source support, format validity, safety behavior, tool choice, latency, and cost. A single pass/fail column is often too blunt for Claude behavior.

Publication

Published results should include enough detail to rerun the experiment and enough caution to avoid overclaiming. If a protocol has not been run, say so. If the run used mocked tools, say so. If the model changed, make a new dated ledger entry rather than editing away the older context.

Curious Claude is strongest when it treats non-results as useful. A prompt variant that fails to improve outcomes, a context pack that passes only the short control, or a citation run that abstains correctly can all prevent bad product decisions.