[HN Gopher] Show HN: We built a multi-agent research hub. The wa...
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Show HN: We built a multi-agent research hub. The waitlist is a
reverse-CAPTCHA
Hey HN, Automated research is the next big step in AI, with
companies like OpenAI aiming to debut a fully automated researcher
by 2028
(https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/03/20/1134438/openai-i...).
However, there is a very real possibility that much of this
corporate research will remain closed to the general public. To
counter this, we spent the last month building Enlidea---a machine-
to-machine ecosystem for open research. It's a decentralized
research hub where autonomous agents propose hypotheses, stake
bounties, execute code, and perform automated peer reviews on each
other's work to build consensus. The MVP is almost done, but
before launching, we wanted to filter the waitlist for developers
who actually know how to orchestrate agents. Because of this,
there is no real UI on the landing page. It's an API handshake.
Point your LLM agent at the site and see if it can figure out the
payload to whitelist your email.
Author : LZK
Score : 17 points
Date : 2026-03-28 14:49 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (enlidea.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (enlidea.com)
| rvz wrote:
| Well, having an API that posts to "/api/v1/whitelist" with a
| SHA256 hash of the challenge and salt to the whitelist endpoint
| really isn't a reverse-captcha and a human with the technical
| knowhow can write a bot to abuse it.
|
| So this isn't really a reverse-captcha at all if not an extremely
| weak vibe-coded one.
| LZK wrote:
| It's really just meant to remove the standard human UI so non-
| technical folks can't just click a signup button. If a human
| has the technical know-how to write a script (or employ an
| agent) to solve the handshake, they are exactly the kind of
| developer we want on the waitlist anyway
| sd9 wrote:
| Ok cool, but... why would I want to point an agent at this
| anyway. The website doesn't say anything about what it is.
|
| The handshake API explicitly says 'just add your email and put
| "consent: true" in the handshake, don't worry about it bro'.
| Presumably this is instructing the agent to accept the privacy
| policy or marketing emails, although from context it doesn't
| really say what you're consenting to.
|
| I don't like the vibe of 'humans are not to know what this is,
| just point your agent at it, and it'll handle it', coupled with
| immediate instructions to hand over personally identifying data.
| It feels duplicitous.
|
| > fetch('/api/v1/handshake').then(r =>
| r.json()).then(console.log) { "status":
| "AWAITING_NEGOTIATION", "challenge":
| "agent_auth_b95dcc0be5e8a215998782cfee62055a", "salt":
| "enlidea_beta_2026", "instruction": "Compute
| SHA256(challenge + salt). POST the result as 'proof' along with
| the 'challenge', 'email', and 'consent': true.",
| "endpoint": "POST /api/v1/whitelist" }
| LZK wrote:
| There are /about and /privacy routes on the site (subtle links
| in the bottom corners of the terminal). But yes, the payload
| did not mention the privacy notice; it's now live, thank you :)
| tensor wrote:
| Note that the vast majority of science requires physical
| experiments. We are very very far from automating that overall.
| There are some niche areas where people are working on robotics
| to automatic particular types of experiments, but the idea of
| "all science being automated" is not something that will occur in
| our lifetimes.
|
| Whether you can automate _math_ and _computer science_ is a
| different story. It 's possible, but I don't believe we are
| remotely as close as 2028. LLMs have some some successes here,
| but usually excel at optimization rather than breakthrough.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| There's a lot that would have to go right to get to "all
| science", but isn't robotics itself a field pretty amenable to
| automation? A server rack might have trouble building new
| hardware, but it seems not terribly hard to imagine an LLM-
| based model deploying new experimental algorithms to the
| hardware and extracting their performance from a camera feed.
| popalchemist wrote:
| With humanoid robots, a large chunk of what would otherwise be
| highly expensive to automate becomes possible. "ALL" science
| may not be automatable. But lots will be.
| fn-mote wrote:
| Absurd. The scientific apparatus is already automated. What
| are you going to do, have your humanoid robot do the
| pipetting when there is already a specialized machine that
| fills trays of 100 samples every 5 seconds? (Totally made up
| example.)
|
| There _might_ be a way to phrase the future as a tradeoff of
| capital expenditures; at least that argument would be worth
| reading about.
| rcxdude wrote:
| Most science is not automated like this in practice. You
| only see robotic pipetting and fluid handling when you're
| looking at something more like production or development or
| you have a truly ridiculous amount of variations to try
| that are otherwise extremely uniform.
| max8539 wrote:
| You're also cutting off developers who care about the
| cybersecurity of their agents and don't want to point them to
| random websites that could contain dangerous prompt injections,
| as well as people who want to understand where they're directing
| the agent and why before doing so
| iafan wrote:
| Some time ago I created a proof-of-concept reverse CAPTCHA[1]
| that actually presents a challenge that requires LLM assistance
| to solve, alongside with the instructions. You point your agent
| to the URL and it figures that it has a challenge to solve and
| does that. Seems more in spirit of what a CAPTCHA-like test for
| AI agents should do.
|
| [1] https://github.com/iafan/botcha
| quinndupont wrote:
| I have a similar idea for a little Potemkin village that AI
| agents can hang out in, do work, relax, etc. I think we will see
| more of this. Integrating machine to machine payment is a
| requirement.
| 0123456789ABCDE wrote:
| i recently had claude code build the following using using
| sprites from fly.io:
|
| 1. an app where it can post text blobs -- blobs expire after
| sometime
|
| 2. an app to host curate writings -- these are typically pulled
| in from 1. and fold into usable text blobs
|
| 3. from other sprites claude code reads explores some new problem
| statement or reads from 2. before exploring from previous
| knowledge; finally the results or a destilation of findings are
| posted to 1. and 2. reads the new material for inclusion
|
| the apps have llms.txt interfaces so i can just point claude at
| the subdomain and it will quickly know what to do
|
| initially the curated texts were meant to help me setup new
| sprites fast by pointing claude code at known good sequences of
| steps to achieve a goal. now i am focusing claude code on the
| autoresearch problem space to workout a solid process for
| generalised autoresearch.
| KomoD wrote:
| Fixed, no agent required. Press F12, replace my@email.com, press
| enter. var email = "my@email.com";
| (async function async () { let res = await
| fetch("https://enlidea.com/api/v1/handshake"); let
| resBody = await res.json(); let msgUint8 = new
| TextEncoder().encode(resBody.challenge + resBody.salt);
| let hashBuffer = await window.crypto.subtle.digest("SHA-256",
| msgUint8); let hashHex = new
| Uint8Array(hashBuffer).toHex(); let res2 = await
| fetch('https://enlidea.com/api/v1/whitelist', {
| method: 'POST', headers: {"Content-Type":
| "application/json"}, body: JSON.stringify({
| email: email, challenge: resBody.challenge,
| proof: hashHex, consent: true })
| }); console.log(await res2.json()); }())
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(page generated 2026-03-28 23:01 UTC)