Anthropic’s CC0-released document describing the intended values and behavior of Claude models, plus how those priorities should be weighed in practice.
Quick take: If you want a plain-English (but still pretty nerdy) look at Claude’s “guardrails,” this is Anthropic putting their cards on the table. It’s also CC0, so you can adapt it without playing licensing roulette.
What it is
Claude’s Constitution is Anthropic’s detailed statement of the values, priorities, and behavioral intent they train Claude to follow. Anthropic describes it as a core training artifact and the “final authority” for their vision of Claude’s character, and notes the document is written primarily for Claude (optimized for precision over accessibility). Anthropic also states they release the constitution under Creative Commons CC0 1.0, meaning it can be used by anyone for any purpose without asking permission.
Gabriel’s notes
This is useful for anyone looking for insight into AI’s—specifically Claude’s—guardrails. Not the hand-wavy “we take safety seriously” kind. More like: “here’s the scaffold we’re trying to bolt to the model’s personality.”
I saved this under Policy & safety because it’s a rare, concrete artifact that shows how a frontier lab tries to operationalize safety, ethics, and compliance inside the model’s instruction hierarchy.
Good fit if you want to:
- Understand how Anthropic prioritizes safety vs. helpfulness (and what happens when those collide).
- Borrow a ready-made value framework to draft your own internal “AI assistant rules of the road.”
- Compare labs’ alignment philosophies (Anthropic’s constitution vs. OpenAI’s Model Spec, etc.).
- Turn fuzzy AI risk conversations into testable requirements (policies → eval prompts).
- Educate a team on what “guardrails” can look like when they’re written down.
Pricing snapshot (auto-enriched)
Free. It’s publicly available on Anthropic’s website, and Anthropic explicitly releases the constitution text under CC0 1.0.
Work-use / compliance snapshot (auto-enriched)
Anthropic says the constitution is released under Creative Commons CC0 1.0. Practically: you can copy, modify, and redistribute it (including commercially) without requesting permission. CC0 also flags common-sense boundaries: you shouldn’t imply Anthropic endorses your use; trademark/patent rights aren’t granted; and it comes with a no-warranty / liability-disclaimer posture. (Not legal advice—just the plain-language takeaway.)
Alternatives (auto-enriched)
- OpenAI Model Spec: Similar “how we want the model to behave” document, but positioned as a spec for OpenAI models (and paired with a public repo + evaluation prompts); useful if you want an engineering-forward structure for policy → tests.
- Google AI Principles: More of a corporate principles statement than an assistant-facing instruction hierarchy; helpful as a high-level ethical lens, but less directly “copy/paste into your assistant policy” than Anthropic/OpenAI docs.
Before you adopt it:
- Version it. Treat constitutions/specs like living documents (date-stamp, changelog, owner).
- Translate values into behavior. For each principle you borrow, write: “What should the assistant do?” + “What should it refuse?” + “What does ‘good’ look like in an eval?”
- Stress-test with real prompts. Your users will discover edge cases faster than your policy doc will.
Sources
- https://www.anthropic.com/constitution
- https://www.anthropic.com/index/claudes-constitution
- https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en
- https://github.com/openai/model_spec
- https://blog.google/technology/ai/ai-principles/