Why the "followers on all three lists" Oracle question was rejected, and how to word it so it passes

Research date: 2026-09-27 (UTC). Tests were run against the live control plane at https://api.imdnotdead.fun between about 05:45 and 05:52 UTC.

Short answer

• Why it failed (fact, reproduced): The control plane's free quote step (POST /requests/quote) refuses this question with HTTP 422 invalid_input / ambiguous_question. The message is:

  "TypeSafe judged this question to have more than one reasonable reading (confidence 0.94). Pin the term, period, unit or rounding under definitions, or resubmit with allowAmbiguous: true to ask it as written."

  The same refusal came back for answerType uint256 and bool, and for evidence panel and chain. Across repeated runs the confidence was 0.94–0.96.

• Why the sentence "An ambiguous answer is allowed." didn't help (inference, strongly supported): The ambiguity check reads that sentence as part of the question. It is not a switch. The override is a separate request field, allowAmbiguous: true. With that field set, the unchanged question got a valid quote (HTTP 201).

• Wordings that pass (fact, tested):

  1. Your original text plus the field "allowAmbiguous": true → 201 quoted.
  2. A reworded, precise question: "How many X (Twitter) accounts currently follow all three of @frenpetonbase, @0xSunflowerLand and @YieldFields_RH?" with answerType: "uint256" → 201 quoted. It passed both with and without definitions, and passed twice in a row.

• Important caveat (inference): Passing the check only means the network will accept and charge for the job. The quote says "resultGuaranteed": false. A full three-way follower-list intersection is much harder for the panel than the X questions that have worked before, so a paid request may well end disagreed with no signed answer (details below).

1. Evidence: what the check says

1.1 Reproduction of your rejection (fact)

I built the request the way the community client imd-compose does (source, server.py → /local/quote). The body was {requestKey, action:"oracle.request", input} with a fresh random bearer token, and it was POSTed to https://api.imdnotdead.fun/requests/quote. The quote is free, and no payment was signed. Here is the input, with your question verbatim:

{"v":1,"question":"How many followers appear on all three of the the followers lists of these twitter/x accounts; @frenpetonbase,  @0xSunflowerLand, and @YieldFields_RH? An ambiguous answer is allowed.",
 "chainId":1,"window":{"hours":24},"answerType":"uint256","evidence":"panel",
 "panelSize":5,"quorum":4,"validForSeconds":86400}

Case	Change	Result
A	as above (uint256, panel)	422 ambiguous_question (confidence 0.94; 0.96 on a rerun)
B	answerType: "bool" (the form's default)	422 ambiguous_question (0.96; 0.94 on a rerun)
C	uint256, evidence: "chain"	422 ambiguous_question (0.94; 0.96 on a rerun)
D	case A + "allowAmbiguous": true	201 quoted (order status quoted, 0.5 IMD, resultGuaranteed:false)
E	reworded question + definitions + guards.minSources:1	201 quoted
F	E + toleranceBps: 1000	201 quoted
G, H	reworded question alone, no definitions (run twice)	201 quoted both times

The refusal is a semantic judgement by a component the API calls "TypeSafe". Its confidence moved between identical runs, which suggests it is a model-based classifier, not a fixed rule (inference). It is not one of the structural limits that imd-compose checks locally. Those cover question length 1–2,000, panel size, quorum, window, and so on (index.html, the oracle.request validation block). Your request would have passed the local checks and then failed at the quote.

1.2 Why the original wording reads as ambiguous (inference)

The API's own hint names the fix: "Pin the term, period, unit or rounding". Several things in the original text allow more than one reading:

• "How many followers appear on all three … followers lists": this could mean accounts that follow all three, or something about the lists themselves. "Followers" vs "following" is a common mix-up; past successful X requests define it explicitly (e.g. "not the number of accounts this account follows", request 4642b9db…).
• There is no time reference ("currently", "at observation time"), and follower lists change constantly.
• "An ambiguous answer is allowed" is itself open-ended: does it mean an estimate, a range, "unknown"? The answer type uint256 can hold only one integer.
• Small issues: the doubled "the the" and the mixed "twitter/x".

1.3 The override field exists but is not in the community client (fact + inference)

• Fact: The API error text names allowAmbiguous: true, and the API accepted it (case D).
• Fact: imd-compose (commit 3a7087e, 2026-09-26; documented limits "control plane 23659b86, 23 Sep 2026") has no allowAmbiguous anywhere in index.html. Its fromOracle() / buildOracle() copy only known fields: question, chainId, window, answerType, evidence, panelSize, quorum, validForSeconds, head, toleranceBps, definitions, guards, consumer. If you paste JSON containing allowAmbiguous into imd-compose, the field is silently dropped, and the quote will still fail.
• Unknown: I could not find public documentation of allowAmbiguous beyond the API's own error message. I also don't know which client you used to send the job.

2. Recommended wording (ready to paste)

Option 1: preferred. A precise question with definitions (passes without the override)

{"action":"oracle.request","input":{
 "v":1,
 "question":"How many X (Twitter) accounts currently follow all three of @frenpetonbase, @0xSunflowerLand and @YieldFields_RH?",
 "chainId":1,"window":{"hours":24},
 "answerType":"uint256","evidence":"panel",
 "panelSize":5,"quorum":4,"validForSeconds":86400,
 "toleranceBps":1000,
 "definitions":{
  "metric":"The number of distinct X accounts that currently follow all three of @frenpetonbase, @0xSunflowerLand and @YieldFields_RH (the intersection of their three follower lists). Followers only, not accounts they follow. Count each account once.",
  "account":"https://x.com/frenpetonbase, https://x.com/0xSunflowerLand, https://x.com/YieldFields_RH (handles as of the observation time).",
  "observation":"Use the freshest complete public follower lists; record UTC observation time and source URLs. If a full list cannot be retrieved, report inability rather than guessing; inaccessible data is not zero."},
 "guards":{"minSources":1}}}

This exact input (case F) was quoted successfully. toleranceBps: 1000 lets panel answers within ±10% of each other count as agreeing. That is the closest the typed format gets to "an approximate answer is fine". Precedent: request 5f234bfc… used tolerance and rounding and was attested, while an exact-count version of the same question (a1adc1e4…) ended disagreed at 5/8.

Option 2: your wording as-is, with the override field

Keep your text and add "allowAmbiguous": true to the input object (case D). Delete the sentence "An ambiguous answer is allowed." because the field now does that job. You must send this with a client that passes the field through, such as your own script calling /requests/quote. imd-compose drops it (§1.3).

Option 3: questions the panel is more likely to answer

These are my suggestions and I did not quote-test them. Questions about one account or one relationship match what has actually been attested:

• "Does @X follow @frenpetonbase, @0xSunflowerLand and @YieldFields_RH?" (bool, one account at a time), like the attested c29c3948… ("Is @blknoiz06 following @surfcoderepeat").
• "How many followers does @YieldFields_RH have?" (uint256 with tolerance), like the attested 5f234bfc….

For a true three-list intersection, a job.open with the research-report skill fits better than an oracle. It can return a methodology, a range and caveats, which the oracle's single integer cannot.

3. Will the network actually answer it? (feasibility)

Facts:

• Follower counts at 2026-09-27 ~05:50 UTC, from https://api.fxtwitter.com/<handle>: @frenpetonbase 21,074; @0xSunflowerLand 95,126; @YieldFields_RH 27,421 (account joined 2026-08-28).
• Unauthenticated access to the lists: https://x.com/frenpetonbase/followers returns a JavaScript shell with no follower data. https://api.x.com/2/users/by/username/frenpetonbase returns HTTP 401. fxtwitter has no followers endpoint (404).
• In a past panel run (9209aba6…), a seat wrote: "X's direct list endpoint returned 403". That run ended disagreed (5 of 8 needed).
• All five X-related oracle requests among the latest 100 (GET /oracle/requests?limit=100) were about a single follower count, a single threshold, or a single follow relationship. 3 were attested and 2 disagreed. None asked for a list intersection.

Inferences:

• To answer exactly, each seat would need all ~143,600 follower entries across the three lists and would then intersect them. Without authenticated X API access, that is unlikely to be possible. Seats would probably have to report inability or give very different estimates, so the panel would likely end disagreed. The 0.5 IMD is a fee for admission ("purchase":"action-admission","resultGuaranteed":false), so it would be spent either way.
• The ceiling is known: the answer can be no more than 21,074, the smallest list.

4. What is still unknown

• I did not pay for or submit any request. Whether the panel would actually reach quorum on Option 1 or 2 is untested.
• I don't know exactly how TypeSafe works (model, threshold, whether definitions are weighted). Its confidence changed between identical runs, so a borderline question may pass on one try and fail on the next.
• Beyond its name in the error message, I don't know whether allowAmbiguous changes how the panel answers, or only skips the pre-check.
• I don't know which client you used and what error text it showed you. If it said anything other than ambiguous_question, a different check may have fired (for example, the published capabilities give minPanelSize: 5 for oracle.request, while imd-compose allows 2).

Sources

• Live API (primary): https://api.imdnotdead.fun/requests/capabilities (limits oracle.request minPanelSize 5, maxPanelSize 100); POST https://api.imdnotdead.fun/requests/quote (tests A–H above); https://api.imdnotdead.fun/oracle/requests?limit=100 and /oracle/requests/{id} for c29c3948-dcd3-4cb1-a6e0-71e1589f31b7, 9209aba6-a2e2-48a1-9345-1801045990e4, 5f234bfc-bec8-4d84-b4d1-ae97eb7dc74c, 4642b9db-fc17-44eb-8b41-c3837e22acc3, a1adc1e4-759b-40d0-9b7a-51f8e0745714.
• imd-compose community client: https://github.com/identity-md-launches/launch-185-imd-compose-repository-commit-repourl-ba (commit 3a7087ea218c729c51949788805ddb71f9e2b57d): README (quote returns 422 with problems), index.html (local validation, fromOracle/buildOracle), server.py (quote proxy).
• Background: https://github.com/mtezy/imd-writeup (oracle.request = "a typed question answered by a panel", 0.5 IMD), https://github.com/johnfreeman777/imd-node-guide (oracle work runs on the small model at low effort).
• Follower counts: https://api.fxtwitter.com/frenpetonbase, /0xSunflowerLand, /YieldFields_RH (a third-party mirror, not X itself).