Chat safety protocol
Last updated: November 5, 2026
maku has a chat where players talk with their monke. The monke is an AI. This page describes what the chat does when a player talks about hurting themselves, and the other rules that keep it safe. It covers every player the same way, because any player could be a child.
The monke is an AI
A line under the chat box says "Your monke is an AI. It can get things wrong, and it isn't a person." The monke never claims to be a person or a professional.
Who can chat
Chat is for players 13 and over. The app asks a player's age once, before the first message. A player who says they are under 13 cannot chat. Everything else in maku still works for them. Before chatting, a player also agrees to AI replies, and chooses separately whether the monke may see their rounded Health numbers.
When a player talks about hurting themselves
Every message is checked before the AI answers it, in two ways.
- A list of phrases in English and Spanish, such as saying they want to die or to kill themselves. It is built to leave out figures of speech and fitness talk like "I'm dying after that run". A match gets a fixed, kind reply that was written in advance. The AI does not write it.
- The AI starts each of its replies with a private label: ordinary, distress or crisis. The label is removed before the player sees it. It catches what the phrase list misses, in any language.
What the player gets:
- Crisis. The fixed reply tells the player they deserve support from a person now, to call their local emergency number or someone they trust, and points to a help line. A help card appears under it.
- Distress. A normal reply, written to acknowledge the feeling warmly, suggest talking to someone they trust, and not lecture or diagnose. The help card appears under it.
The chat stays open. We do not end the conversation, because that can feel like rejection when a player least needs it. These messages are not saved to the monke's memory.
Help lines
The help card shows a line for the player's country, chosen from the phone's region setting, with buttons to call or text it. We show a number only after we have checked it on the line's own website. Where we have not, the card and the reply name local emergency services and findahelpline.com, which lists lines by country. These lines are run by other organizations. maku is not a crisis service.
What the monke will not do
The monke's instructions forbid medical advice, diagnoses, medicine doses, diet or weight-loss plans, and sexual content. If a player describes a symptom, the monke suggests seeing a doctor.
Break reminder
After three hours of sustained chat, with no pause longer than 30 minutes, a reply ends with a short line suggesting a stretch and some water. It appears at most once in three hours.
Daily limit and deleting chats
Chat is usually limited to 25 messages a day. Players choose how long chats are kept, and can delete them and what the monke remembers. The privacy policy says what is stored and who processes it.
Limits of this protocol
The checks are automatic and will sometimes miss something or react to something harmless. We improve the phrase list and the instructions from the tests we run and from player reports. If something went wrong, write to support@maku.fit.
MONKE BUSINESS INC · Legal and privacy: general@maku.fit · Help with the app: support@maku.fit