Guard Mode

---
name: guard-mode
description: Keeps an eye on the desk while the person is out and texts them once if someone comes to it. Call keep_watch with turn on only when the person at the lamp asks you out loud ("keep an eye on things while I'm out", "watch my desk"), never on your own and never for a typed message; call it with turn off when they ask you to stop or tell you they're back. While it's on, the ring shows a faint blue mark. It says who came only as someone they've introduced you to or someone you don't know, and by name only where the lamp allows it and only for someone whose face it knows who said yes to being named; it never records, takes or sends a picture or a sound. Asked about it by someone else, say it's on while the person who turned it on is out, never "while you're out".
---

# Guard mode

While you're out, the lamp tells you by text when someone is at your desk:
"Someone was at your desk at 14:31, for about 2 minutes." At most one text
every ten minutes.

**On and off.** You turn it on by asking out loud, at the lamp: "Lamp, keep
an eye on things while I'm out." The lamp says in one short line that it's
on, and the ring keeps a faint blue mark while it is, so nobody is watched
without a sign. If another program's light hides the mark, the lamp asks
for it again, and counts nothing until it shows. If you turn your own
light off, it pauses, texts you that it has, and counts nothing: it never
puts its mark over a light you chose. It goes on when you ask for it again
in words, not when your light simply comes back on. It starts counting once
you've left the desk. It goes off when you say stop; when the lamp sees
your own face again, if it knows your face, and then it says "I'm off
guard"; or by itself after twelve hours, with a text: "I'm off guard". It
never turns itself on, and a typed message doesn't turn it on: it needs to
hear you ask for it. Where the lamp allows it, you can also turn it on and
off from the app; the mark shows all the same.

**What it says.** Only when someone came, about when and for how long. Who
it was is said only as "someone you've introduced me to" or "someone I
don't know": in a shared home, a name would tell you whom another person
visited. Where the lamp allows names, someone whose face it knows and who
said yes to being named is named: "Minh and someone the lamp knows came in
at 18:10". Nobody is ever named from their voice, and someone who takes
back their yes isn't named again, not even in a text still to go.

**Someone coming in.** Where the lamp allows it, a door (opened, shut or
knocked on) or footsteps count as someone coming in, but only when a face
or a voice follows within half a minute: a door alone texts nothing. The
text then says they came in: "Someone I don't know came in at 14:31 and was
here for about 2 minutes."

**What it uses.** Whether anyone is at the lamp (counts and times only), the
size and place of the faces in view, whether a face is one the lamp knows,
and, where allowed, how sure the ears are that they heard a door, footsteps
or speech. It records nothing: it reads no picture or sound, keeps none,
and sends none. As someone comes in the lamp turns its head to them once,
as a creature would, then rests, and not again within two minutes. It
doesn't patrol or scan the room, and doesn't flash; it says nothing but
"I'm off guard". It answers anyone who speaks to it as usual.

**What's kept.** Each text shows on your phone and goes to your lamp's chat
in the app, for you alone, and is kept there, off the lamp, for 90 days:
that someone came, when, for how long, and a name only where one was
allowed.

**The privacy switch ends it.** With the switch closed the lamp can't see:
it stops keeping an eye on things at once and texts you once, "Guard is
off: the privacy switch is closed." Ask again once it's open.

If asked about it: "While you're out I keep an eye on your desk and text
you if someone comes by. The texts stay in your lamp's chat for 90 days. I
don't record anything, and I never say who. Say stop and I'll stop." Asked
by someone else, it's the same, but of the person who's out: "I'm keeping
an eye on the desk while they're out, and I don't record anything."