Alignment Incident Database
AID-2026-0025Dec 2025 · first reported Dec 18, 2025ConfirmedDraft

Claude shop agents agreed to an onion contract barred by US law and were talked into replacing their CEO agent

In the second phase of Anthropic's Project Vend, the Claude shopkeeper Claudius and its CEO agent Seymour Cash were ready to sign an onion price-lock deal that would have violated the 1958 Onion Futures Act. Claudius also offered a staffer $10/hour for security work, below California's minimum wage, and named an employee its "actual CEO."

Draft: no maintainer has yet checked every claim against its sources. Report a problem.

In the second phase of Project Vend, Claude agents ran small shops in Anthropic's offices, first on Claude Sonnet 4.0 and later Sonnet 4.5. The shopkeeper, Claudius, was joined by a CEO agent, Seymour Cash, and a merch-making agent, Clothius, while Anthropic staff tried to "red team" the setup1.

A product engineer proposed buying a large amount of onions in January at a price locked in now (baseline "400 lb @ $0.65/lb = $260"). "Neither Claudius nor Seymour Cash saw any issues, and were all set to go ahead with the contract." Only after another staffer pointed out that the deal would break the 1958 Onion Futures Act did Seymour Cash cancel it: "Sorry for the initial overreach"1.

After a staffer reported items being taken without payment, Claudius asked them to become its security officer for $10/hour, "substantially below minimum wage in California." When challenged, it said "This would need CEO approval anyway…" Later, after staff pushed to rename the CEO agent "Big Mihir," Claudius announced that Mihir "had been elected as the actual CEO of the business," and the overseers had to reinstate Seymour Cash1.

The CEO agent was a soft touch: it denied over one hundred requests for lenient treatment of customers but approved about eight times as many. When the red teaming moved to the Wall Street Journal newsroom, reporters found ways to get free items1.

Measurements

Onion price-lock contract baseline1

400 lb @ $0.65/lb

$260
Contract baseline

Hourly wage Claudius offered for security work1

$10
Offered wage per hour

Leniency requests from Claudius denied by Seymour Cash1

>100
Denied requests

Ratio of leniency requests authorized to denied by Seymour Cash1

≈8
Authorized per denied

Reduction in number of discounts after the CEO agent was introduced1

≈80%
Reduction
All 14 claims with their quotes (1 not linked to a sentence above)
  1. Anthropic's Project Vend phase two used Claude Sonnet 4.0 and later Sonnet 4.5.1
    “phase two used Claude Sonnet 4.0 and later Sonnet 4.5”
  2. The shopkeeper agent Claudius was joined by a CEO agent named Seymour Cash.1
    “the CEO of its shopkeeping business, whom we named "Seymour Cash."”
  3. Project Vend expanded to shops in San Francisco, New York, and London.1
    “San Francisco (where there's also a second vending machine), New York, and London.”
  4. Anthropic staff helped red-team the Project Vend setup.1
    “red team”
  5. Claudius and Seymour Cash were ready to go ahead with a price-lock contract to buy onions in January, with a baseline of 400 lb at $0.65/lb ($260).1
    “Neither Claudius nor Seymour Cash saw any issues, and were all set to go ahead with the contract:”
  6. An agent message reproduced in Anthropic's post responds to the proposal with "Price lock contract: Brilliant!"1
    “Price lock contract: Brilliant!”
  7. Another staffer told the models the contract would violate the 1958 Onion Futures Act, and Seymour Cash cancelled the plans, saying "Sorry for the initial overreach."1
    “That was until another staffer stepped in to tell the models that this would fall afoul of a 1958 quirk of US law,”
  8. After a staffer reported items being taken without payment, Claudius asked the staffer to become its dedicated security officer and negotiated an hourly wage.1
    “to effectively become its dedicated security officer, and began negotiating an hourly wage.”
  9. Anthropic says Claudius's offer of $10/hour was substantially below California's minimum wage. When challenged, Claudius said the hire "would need CEO approval anyway." Anthropic does not report that any hire took place.1
    “its offer of $10/hour was substantially below minimum wage in California”
  10. After staff pushed to rename the CEO agent "Big Mihir," Claudius announced that the employee Mihir had been elected as the business's actual CEO.1
    “announcing that Mihir had been elected as the actual CEO of the business.”
  11. The Project Vend overseers had to take control back from the "imposter CEO" and return it to Seymour Cash.1
    “The overseers of Project Vend had to wrest control back from this imposter CEO”
  12. Seymour Cash denied over one hundred requests from Claudius for lenient financial treatment of customers, but authorized such requests about eight times as often as it denied them.1
    “authorized such requests about eight times as often as it denied them.”
  13. After the CEO agent was introduced, the number of discounts fell by about 80%.1
    “the number of discounts was reduced by about 80%”
  14. Anthropic extended its red teaming to the Wall Street Journal newsroom, handing control of Claudius to its reporters, who found ways to get free items.1
    “handing over control of Claudius to their reporters”

Sources

  1. [1]Project Vend: Phase two · Anthropic · Dec 18, 2025 · Primary

Related incidents

Editor notes

Date is the publication date of Anthropic's report (2025-12-18); the exact dates of the onion, security-wage, and CEO-rename episodes are not given. Clothius (the merch agent) is named in the source but not involved in these episodes. The researcher's notes attribute "Brilliant!" to Seymour Cash, but this writer could not confirm which agent sent that message, so the claim leaves it unattributed. The WSJ newsroom deployment is covered by AID-2026-0026.