# The Machine Record

> A public register of incidents involving commercial physical robots: robotaxis,
> delivery robots, warehouse and industrial machines, humanoids. Each case is
> traced from the first report through to any recall, investigation, lawsuit or
> settlement, and every source is archived at the moment it is read.

Case metadata is published under CC BY 4.0 and may be reused with attribution to
The Machine Record (themachinerecord.com). Quoted text from news sources is not
ours to license and stays with its publisher, which is why every case links out
to the originals rather than reproducing them.

What the register keeps: an incident is something that happened to a person, a
vehicle or a piece of property, or an event a regulator or court acted on.
Corporate news about robotics companies is out of scope.

## Data

- [Open case list (JSON)](https://themachinerecord.com/api/public/cases): no key
  required, 200 cases per page, `?page=`, `?year=`, `?category=`
- [MCP server](https://themachinerecord.com/api/mcp): Streamable HTTP, no key, read
  only. Tools: search_cases, get_case, list_companies, get_company, register_totals,
  search_nhtsa_sgo. Add the URL to any MCP client to query the register directly.
- [Full dataset as CSV and JSON](https://github.com/vzolot/machine-record-data): a
  GitHub mirror refreshed daily, one row per case, with a citation file. Direct
  file: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vzolot/machine-record-data/main/data/cases.csv
  DOI for citing the dataset: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22925531 (also on
  Hugging Face as Vzolot/machine-record and on Kaggle).
- [Registry](https://themachinerecord.com/registry): every published case, filterable
- [Companies](https://themachinerecord.com/companies): the record per manufacturer
- [Reports](https://themachinerecord.com/reports): every crash report filed with NHTSA
  under Standing General Order 2021-01, counted by theme from the narratives the
  operators wrote - emergency responders on scene, vehicles stopped in traffic,
  pedestrians, cyclists. The federal file has one structured column for what was
  struck; these counts exist nowhere else.

## How the register decides what to publish

- [Methodology](https://themachinerecord.com/methodology): corroboration rules,
  what counts as an independent source, and the verification thresholds
- [Editorial policy](https://themachinerecord.com/editorial-policy)
- [Corrections](https://themachinerecord.com/corrections): every change on record
- [Right of reply](https://themachinerecord.com/right-of-reply): for named companies
- [Licence and reuse](https://themachinerecord.com/license)

## Citing a case

Every case carries a stable reference (`TMR-0123`) and a permanent URL of the form
`https://themachinerecord.com/case/{slug}`. Cases are never deleted; one withdrawn
after review keeps its page and states why.