---
license: cc-by-4.0
pretty_name: Cat Keyboard Corpus
language:
- zxx
size_categories:
- n<1K
task_categories:
- other
tags:
- cats
- keyboard
- fun
---

# Cat Keyboard Corpus

Messages typed by the cats, Giddings and Chester, on the keyboard of my Dell Latitude E6420 XFR laptop (US QWERTY),
kept "for posterity".

**Why this exists.** My desk is where the sun is, and the cats have right of way. The laptop runs a long-term sensor
project with an AI assistant, and rather than fence off their spot, I let them walk across it. Sometimes a message gets
sent. This corpus keeps them.

**About the authors.** **Giddings** favours the B key and the semicolon, and likes to drink from the stream in the
bathtub left by a brief run of the shower. **Chester** walks the keyboard often; his first message (2026-10-02) was a single "x", and he
pressed Enter himself - the first message a cat sent on its own. He was also the first cat the project's camera ever recognized.

## Fields (`messages.jsonl`)
| field | meaning |
|---|---|
| `id` | running number |
| `sent_at_utc` | when the message reached the assistant (typing may have happened earlier; see `time_quality`) |
| `text` | the message exactly as received |
| `author` | the cat: `giddings`, `chester`, ..., or `unknown` when nobody saw which cat |
| `sent_by` | who pressed **Enter**: the cat's name, `me`, or `unknown` (recorded from message 5 on; earlier ones backfilled where I remembered) |
| `cat_part` | only where the text mixes my input (or text the software offered) and a cat's: the cat's typed part |
| `kind` | absent for a typed message; `keys` for a key event: control keys that did something but left no text (`text` is empty) |
| `keys` | for key events (and messages where a control key mattered, like 16): the keys, as far as they can be told (nothing records keystrokes, so they come from the effects and from my own check of what recreates them) |
| `effect` | for key events: what happened |
| `notes` | context |

## Observations so far (24 messages + 1 key event, 1096 typed cat keystrokes, 2026-10-07)
- Most-pressed keys: **N** (149), **D** (108), **F** (78), **R** (67), **B** (56), **V** (54) (Shift+B counted as B), plus 325 spaces.
- Messages 1-7, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22 and 23 are Giddings' (13, 14 and 17 back on his B/N/M spot, bottom row; 18 is the top-right corner, `[ ] =`, a new spot; 19 is the keys left of Enter with Shift held for part of it: `""??/':`); 8, 9, 15, 16 and 20 are by an unknown cat (Giddings or Chester); 10, 11, 24 and 25 are Chester's ("x"; then 75 f's and a c, on the keys next to it; then, on 2026-10-07, a row of double quotes and `'}` from the keys beside Enter).
- Giddings' early messages cluster on the bottom-middle keys (B/N/V/M), later ones on the bottom right (`k l ; ' , . /`,
  next to Enter), perhaps following where he steps onto the laptop.
- Messages 8 and 9 are held keys: one b + 114 n's; then 248 spaces, c, 107 d's, 46 g's, v, b - a slide across the
  middle of the keyboard (C and V/B on the bottom row, D and G on the home row), after a long press on the spacebar.
- Four messages show a paw on Shift: capital B's in one, message 19's quotes, question marks and colon, and Chester's 24 (all double quotes) and 25 (the brace).
- `sent_by`: I pressed Enter 17 times; 4 are unknown; **Chester sent message 10 himself**, the first cat-sent message; **Giddings sent message 17 himself** (" bn"), his first; **Chester sent message 24 himself** too, his second.
- Entry 12 is a key event, not a message: Giddings, Ctrl+C twice (confirmed afterwards: the only combination that
  recreates what I saw). It typed nothing and opened a session-select menu inside Claude Code instead; the running session was not closed.

- Message 16 begins with a sentence nobody typed: a cat's Tab accepted the program's suggested prompt ("good morning, how
  did the night run go?"), then came c, x, 11 v's, 3 spaces, f and 52 z's from the bottom-left corner, and my Enter
  (pressed to wake the computer) sent it. All 52 z's in the corpus are from this one message.

- **Message 20 is the first actual word: "ok"** (unknown cat; O sits just above K). I pressed Enter only to wake the
  screen, and the assistant answered it as if I had written it - the first cat message to pass as mine.

## Working notes: kinds of events (2026-10-03)
Not a field yet. We are still learning what happens, and the kind can be worked out from each entry.

| name | what it is | entries so far |
|---|---|---|
| sit | a cat rests or walks on the keys, text piles up, a human sends it | 1, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25 (probably 2 and 4) |
| recall | the keys recall an earlier command (Up-arrow), then add text | 3 |
| self-send | the cat's keys include Enter | 10, 17, 24 |
| operate | control keys change what the program is doing; no text | 12 |
| mixed line | my text and a cat's on the same line | 7 |
| accept | a cat's key accepts text the software offered (Tab on a suggested prompt); the words are the program's, then cat keys follow (also a sit) | 16 |

Not seen yet, or not noticed: **edit** (a cat deletes or changes what I typed), **interrupt** (keys that cancel something
in progress), **unsent** (typed, then cleared by me - never recorded unless I mention it). A long run of one key is a
paw resting; many different keys is a cat moving.

Who is involved: the two cats make the keystrokes; I am the witness (which cat, and often the one who presses Enter);
the AI assistant keeps the record, and is not a neutral recorder - entry 12 needed two corrections because it filled in
what it could not see. An event only gets here if Enter is pressed or I notice, so this is what the cats typed *that got
sent or witnessed*, not everything they typed.

The `unknown` values of `sent_by` were most likely me pressing Enter, but I am not sure, so they stay `unknown`.

## Collection
Messages are recorded as they arrive, with who wrote them and who pressed Enter. Desk changes that may affect the cats'
routes are noted (2026-09-30: I cleared the desk). No other data about the household is included.

## Changelog
- 2026-09-30: first release as `giddings-keyboard` (5 messages by Giddings).
- 2026-09-30: renamed to `cat-keyboard-corpus` so every cat fits; the card is in my own voice; `sent_by` value `owner` -> `me`.
- 2026-09-30: "the cats" instead of "my cats" (companions, not possessions).
- 2026-10-01: message 6 (Giddings, J/M/N); message 7 (mixed: my " mxc" typed on the wrong keyboard, then Giddings' run of C's and "dm").
- 2026-10-02: message 8 (unknown cat: 38 spaces, one b, then 114 n's - the longest message so far); observations recounted over all messages.
- 2026-10-02: message 9 (unknown cat: 248 spaces, c, 107 d's, 46 g's, v, b - now the longest; slides across the middle row).
- 2026-10-02: message 10: Chester's first, a single "x", sent by Chester himself (I didn't press Enter) - the first cat-sent message.
- 2026-10-03: message 11: Chester again, 75 f's and a c (I pressed Enter).
- 2026-10-03: entry 12, the first **key event**: Giddings, Ctrl+C twice - no text, but it opened a session-select menu inside Claude Code. New fields `kind`, `keys`, `effect`.
- 2026-10-03: entry 12 corrected twice: the keys are confirmed (Ctrl+C twice is the only combination that recreates what I saw), and the effect was a session-select menu inside the program - the session was never closed.
- 2026-10-03: working notes on the kinds of events (sit, recall, self-send, operate, mixed line), who is involved, and what never gets recorded.
- 2026-10-03: message 13: Giddings, a space, 12 m's, n, m and a comma (I pressed Enter).
- 2026-10-03: message 14: Giddings again, 11 n's, m, space, n, b, b (I pressed Enter).
- 2026-10-04: message 15: unknown cat, "lcx" (I pressed Enter).
- 2026-10-05: message 16: unknown cat. Tab accepted the program's suggested prompt, then c, x, 11 v's, 3 spaces, f, 52 z's (I pressed Enter to wake the computer). New kind in the working notes: accept. `cat_part` now also separates software-written text from the cat's.
- 2026-10-05: message 17: Giddings, " bn", and he pressed Enter himself - his first self-sent message.
- 2026-10-05: message 18: Giddings, 3 spaces, ], 11 ['s and = from the top-right corner (I pressed Enter).
- 2026-10-06: message 19: Giddings, `""??/':` with Shift held for part of it; typed about half an hour before I pressed Enter.
- 2026-10-06: message 20: unknown cat, "ok" - the first actual word. I pressed Enter to wake the screen; the assistant replied to it as mine.
- 2026-10-07: message 21: Giddings, 40 v's (I pressed Enter).
- 2026-10-07: message 22: Giddings, f, v, g, f and 67 r's (I pressed Enter).
- 2026-10-07: message 23: Giddings, 1 space, 2 n's, 11 spaces, n and b (I pressed Enter).
- 2026-10-07: messages 24 and 25: Chester. 11 double quotes, sent by Chester himself; then `'}` 102 s later (I pressed Enter).

## License
CC BY 4.0.