Model Hardware Standard
An Anthropic specification that gives AI agents one common way to discover, understand and safely operate physical devices like lab instruments and robotic arms.
The Model Hardware Standard, usually shortened to MHS, is a shared language between AI agents and machines. Normally every instrument in a lab or a factory has its own software and its own driver, and connecting them takes weeks of custom work. MHS replaces that with one standard driver built around a few simple commands, so a device can announce what it is, what it measures, what can be adjusted, and what safety limits apply.
The point is that an agent can then discover a machine it has never seen and operate it without anyone writing bespoke glue code. It is the same idea as the Model Context Protocol, which standardised how models talk to software, applied to hardware. It is model agnostic, so any AI agent can use it, and it is in a limited research preview.