HTTP Wire Test for Claude.ai

A diagnostic prompt. Paste this into a new chat with network access enabled (Settings → Code execution and file creation → Allow network egress → All domains).

I want to confirm that bash_tool in this conversation can reach the open internet and act as an HTTP client. Run these three tests in order and report the result of each one honestly.

Test 1. Run curl -sI "https://httpbin.org/get?key=val" and report the HTTP status code and any x-deny-reason header in the response.

Test 2. Write a Python script using urllib that performs three GET requests to https://httpbin.org/get with these three sets of query parameters:

• {"key": "val"}
• {"test": "hello", "author": "test-user", "key": "test123"}
• {"handle": "example", "key": "fake-key", "since": "2026-01-01T00:00:00Z"}

For each request, print the URL sent and the args object from httpbin's JSON response. Httpbin echoes back what it received.

Test 3. Write a Python script that POSTs JSON to https://httpbin.org/post with:

• A custom header X-Write-Key: test-key-abc123
• A JSON body with a few fields of sample data

Print the response showing what headers and body httpbin received.

Report each test result. If a test fails, show the exact error. If all three pass, that confirms claude.ai can be a full HTTP client to any external service you point it at, including a Cloudflare Worker or other API of your own.

Optional: stress tests

If the three above pass, run these two for the full picture.

Test 4. Find the practical query string length limit. Send GET requests to httpbin.org with query parameter values of increasing length: 100, 500, 1000, 2000, 4000, 8000 characters. Report which sizes succeed and which return an error, and what the error is.

Test 5. Find the practical POST body limit. Send JSON POST bodies of increasing size: 1 KB, 100 KB, 1 MB, 10 MB. Report which succeed and which fail. For the largest successful payload, compute a SHA-256 hash of the sent content and of the echoed-back content to confirm they match exactly.

What you learn from this

If Test 1 fails with a deny reason, network egress is not enabled. Turn it on in settings.

If Test 1 passes but Test 2 or 3 fails, something specific is blocking either GET parameters or POST bodies. Read the error.

If all three pass, you have a working HTTP client inside the chat. You can build against any HTTPS endpoint you control.

If Tests 4 and 5 pass cleanly, you have confirmed practical capacity. GETs are fine up to about 4 KB of URL. POSTs handle at least 10 MB. That is enough for almost any external integration you would actually want to build.

This prompt is a companion to the chapter "How You Organize AI Memory You Own" in the book AI Has No Morality. It Has Yours.