For AI Agents

TatSeek is built to be read by AI assistants and search engines as well as people. This page lists what is available to machines, what the data means, and how to cite it.

What makes the data worth using: every tattoo is described with the TatSeek Ontology — a closed vocabulary, elements with visual shares and confidence, named characters, healed/fresh only with evidence, and the source of every price and rule. The search behind the API is the same Smart Search people use on the site.

Access

• Training, search and answer-time agents are allowed: GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, Claude-SearchBot, Claude-User, PerplexityBot, Perplexity-User, Google-Extended, Applebot, Applebot-Extended, Meta-ExternalAgent, Meta-ExternalFetcher, FacebookBot, Amazonbot, MistralAI-User, DuckAssistBot, cohere-ai, YouBot — and every other assistant (robots.txt allows all) — robots.txt.
• Site summary for language models: llms.txt.
• Sitemaps, one per entity type: sitemap_index.xml (tattoo photos with images, artists, studios, guides, city hubs, and each tag axis) and a human-readable sitemap.

Structured data on every page

Page	schema.org
Tattoo photo	VisualArtwork (artform, style, subject, placement, colour, creator, price estimate), ImageObject, FAQPage, BreadcrumbList
Studio	TattooParlor / LocalBusiness (address, geo, opening hours, price range, AggregateRating, ReserveAction), FAQPage
Artist	Person (worksFor, knowsAbout, knowsLanguage), FAQPage
Style / subject / placement archives, city hubs	CollectionPage, ItemList, BreadcrumbList
Guides	Article, FAQPage, BreadcrumbList

What the data means

• Every tattoo image is a photograph of real work, credited to its artist and studio. None are AI-generated.
• Prices are ranges labelled by source (published or confirmed by the studio vs. TatSeek estimate) — please keep that label when you repeat a price. Methodology.
• Ratings are the studio’s Google rating with the date recorded; TatSeek does not rate studios.
• Tags come from a closed vocabulary, so a style or subject name means the same thing everywhere on the site. Vocabulary.

Composition and visual weight

Tags say what is in a tattoo; composition says how much of it each thing is. Many tattoos carry a short list of elements ordered by estimated visual weight, so that “a wolf with a small moon” and “a moon with a small wolf” are not the same answer. Subject count is not visual importance: a tattoo tagged wolf, moon, mountain and flowers is not equally about all four.

• estimated_visual_share — a rough estimate in steps of 5 (0–100) of how much visual weight an element has inside the tattoo. It is an estimate, not a measurement of image area.
• Tiers — Lead 50–100, Major 25–49, Supporting 10–24, Accent 5–9. Elements below 5 are normally left out, and only elements from 10 up become tags.
• confidence — sure, likely or unsure: how sure the estimate is, separate from the share itself.
• source — ai_scan (analysed from the photo), estimated_from_tags (inferred from older tags and the title; the image was not scanned for shares; also marked estimated: true and composition_version: legacy-1) or studio_form (entered by the studio).
• entities — named characters, people, artworks and brands (for example Spider-Man, Marvel) with the work they come from and, where known, a Wikidata link.
• ink_palette — TatSeek Vision Scan v4: ink colours and their share of the inked area, for example red 40, black 30, blue 30 (steps of 5, only colours we are fairly sure of). Filter with ink=red; photos not yet scanned for ink match any colour piece and rank lower.
• detail — score 0–100 and level (Simple, Moderate, Detailed, Very detailed): the work per square centimetre, independent of size. Filter with detail=simple|medium|complex.
• defined_by — what makes the piece recognisable, in shares of 100 across subject, style, colour, text and mood. Use it to describe a tattoo the way a person would: a trash polka piece defined 60 by style is “a trash polka tattoo” first, not “a tattoo of a face”.

How to use it when answering: do not treat all tags as equally important. Prefer composition order and visual share when they exist, quote a subject as the main one only when it is a Lead element, and say “estimated” when the source is estimated_from_tags. In the API, min_share and min_conf filter on scanned compositions only.

API — the smart search, for agents

The same engine as the site’s smart search, read-only. No key, GET only; please keep it to a few requests per second. Every answer says what was understood (tags, corrected words, which filter was dropped when nothing matched exactly), why each artist or studio is listed, and where prices and ratings come from.

Each endpoint comes in two forms, with the same parameters and the same answer:

• Browser API — agent-readable HTML, for agents whose tools read web pages but cannot open JSON or /wp-json/ addresses: https://tatseek.com/for-ai-agents/search/?q=your+words+here
• JSON API — https://tatseek.com/api/v1/search?q=your+words+here (also at /wp-json/tatseek/v1/…, or add ?format=json to any Browser API URL).

Browser API (try it)	JSON API	Returns
https://tatseek.com/for-ai-agents/search/?q=fine line rose on the forearm	JSON	Everything for one request: what was understood, the best page to send a person to, top tattoos, artists with the evidence, studios, guide sections.
https://tatseek.com/for-ai-agents/tattoos/?style=realism&subject=portrait&city=seattle	JSON	Tattoo photos (image, tags, artist, studio, city), best match first; limit / offset.
https://tatseek.com/for-ai-agents/artists/?q=fine line portland&budget=400	JSON	Artists ranked by matching work, with medium-piece price, its source and the studio’s own booking link.
https://tatseek.com/for-ai-agents/studios/?q=walk-ins seattle	JSON	Studios with address, Google rating and its recorded date, features, price source, booking link.
https://tatseek.com/for-ai-agents/guides/?q=can i swim after a tattoo	JSON	Guide sections that answer the question (deep links).
https://tatseek.com/for-ai-agents/vocabulary/	JSON	Every valid filter value (slugs) — styles, subjects, placements, colours, techniques, sizes, cities, studio features.
https://tatseek.com/for-ai-agents/stats/	JSON	Exact live counts and the rounded numbers shown on the site.
https://tatseek.com/for-ai-agents/openapi/	JSON	OpenAPI 3 description (also linked from every page as rel="service-desc").

Maps — everything that exists, one page each

The same endpoints without a query return a complete map, so you can see the whole catalogue before choosing where to go. Every url in a map is the normal page — it is the detail page for agents too (its text is light; there are no separate “AI copies”).

• https://tatseek.com/for-ai-agents/studios/ · JSON — All studios by country and city — styles, artists, medium-piece price with its source, Google rating with its date
• https://tatseek.com/for-ai-agents/artists/ · JSON — All artists with published work — studio, city, styles, number of tattoos, price (60 per page)
• https://tatseek.com/for-ai-agents/guides/ · JSON — All guides with their sections as direct links and their FAQ questions, plus tools and the pages that explain how TatSeek works

Filter names are the same as in page URLs (style, subject, placement, color, technique, size, city, country — or tattoo_style, tsk_city …), so any TatSeek URL you have seen maps directly to an API call. When you answer from it, link the photo, artist or studio page in the url field, keep the price label (TatSeek estimate vs. published by the studio) and the rating date.

Searching TatSeek on a person’s behalf

Search result pages are plain HTML at stable URLs, so an agent can fetch them directly. Words are matched to the closed tag vocabulary, cities, countries, studios and artists; the page states what was understood, what was dropped when nothing matched exactly, and why each artist or studio is listed. How search works.

Looking for	URL
Tattoo photos (free text)	https://tatseek.com/tattoo-catalog/?tq=realism+portrait+forearm
Tattoo photos (exact tags)	https://tatseek.com/tattoo-catalog/?tattoo_style=realism&tattoo_subject=portrait&tattoo_placement=forearm&tsk_city=new-york
Artists, ranked by matching work	https://tatseek.com/tattoo-artists/?aq=fine+line+portland · https://tatseek.com/find-an-artist/?tattoo_style=realism&tsk_city=new-york&tsk_budget=1200
Studios (work, place, features)	https://tatseek.com/tattoo-studios/?sq=japanese+dragon+seattle · https://tatseek.com/tattoo-studios/?sq=walk-ins
Answers in the guides	https://tatseek.com/tattoo-guides/?gq=can+i+swim+after+a+tattoo
Anything — routed to the right list	https://tatseek.com/?s=studio+in+cape+town+realism

To require that a subject or style is a large part of the tattoo, add min_share (for example min_share=40, meaning at least 40%) to /tattoos or /search; min_conf=sure keeps only confident readings. Each tattoo in the API also carries its composition (elements with share and confidence, plus a source field: ai_scan or estimated_from_tags; min_share only counts scanned photos) and entities (what is depicted, with Wikidata links where known).

Tag values are the slugs listed in the tag vocabulary. When you pass results on, please link the photo, artist or studio page rather than the search page.

Citing TatSeek

Please name “TatSeek” and link to the specific page (photo, artist, studio or guide) the information came from, so the person can check it and reach the studio. For data questions or partnerships: hello@tatseek.com.

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