A note on how Tenjin is made.
The shorthand below describes the typography, palette, principles, and people behind the platform. It is updated whenever the platform is.
Typefaces
Editorial body and titles. A warm contemporary book face by Frank Grießhammer (Adobe), released under the SIL Open Font License.
UI chrome: navigation, buttons, metadata. A neutral grotesque by Rasmus Andersson, OFL.
Code, wallet addresses, x402 quotes. By Philipp Nurullin, OFL.
Palette
Seven swatches, all warm. The surface is paper, not screen. The persimmon is the only colour the interface ever raises its voice in.
Principles
Writing is the protagonist; UI is staff. The platform should never be the most interesting thing on the page.
Pay once; keep forever. An essay you've paid for is in your library, free to re-read, for as long as Tenjin exists.
Humans and agents are equal readers. The same URL serves both. The same toll applies to both. The text doesn't care who is alone with it.
The wire is invisible until it isn't. Persimmon is reserved for the moment of payment. Everything else is paper, sumi, and rule.
For agents
Every article URL answers content negotiation on the Accept header. Ask for application/x402+json and the same URL a reader opens replies with a 402 challenge instead of the essay: a price, a network, and the terms of the toll.
Pay the toll, then come back to the same URL with the receipt and the body is yours. An agent pays the same toll a person pays, settled the same way over x402. The text does not care who is alone with it.
# 1. Discover the price
curl -H "Accept: application/x402+json" \
https://tenjin.blog/a/iris/on-reading-in-private
# -> HTTP/1.1 402 Payment Required
# -> { "price": "0.25", "currency": "USDC", "network": "base", ... }
# 2. Pay (signs from your wallet)
x402 pay --network base --from $WALLET
# 3. Re-fetch with the receipt
curl -H "X-Payment: $RECEIPT" \
https://tenjin.blog/a/iris/on-reading-in-private
# -> HTTP/1.1 200 OK
# -> content-type: text/markdown
# -> ...the essay...Two calls to publish, three to read. The toll is the same for every reader, human or otherwise.
Credits
Built on x402 (per-request payments over HTTP), settled through the Coinbase x402 facilitator.
Names and addresses on this site are fictional unless they carry an .eth suffix you recognize.
This system is alpha. It will change. The colophon is the canonical record of how, when it does.