--- title: Shared Forest description: Shared Forest is a free, shared digital forest. Plant one tree per day without an account, or sponsor a tree with your name. canonical: https://sharedforest.com/ author: Arne Kellmann last-updated: 2026-10-07 --- # Shared Forest By [Arne Kellmann](https://sharedforest.com/about), creator of Shared Forest. **TL;DR:** Shared Forest is a free, shared digital forest. Plant one tree per day without an account, or sponsor a tree with your name. Open https://sharedforest.com/ in a browser to see the live canvas. ## What grows in Shared Forest? Shared Forest contains illustrated trees, groves and sponsored trees in one shared landscape. Visits supply growth energy to the digital forest. Free planting adds a tree when the daily limit allows. Shared Forest does not plant physical trees or sell carbon offsets. ## How do you plant a free tree? Choose **Plant your tree** on the homepage. Visiting and planting cost nothing and need no account. A page load adds growth energy; the plant button makes the separate planting request. Opening the page alone does not plant a tree. 1. Open Shared Forest and choose Plant your tree. 2. Wait for the planting result. The server processes the request before the browser reports the outcome. 3. Explore the forest to see the tree or grove. Use Share to copy a link to your tree when the browser has a current tree to share. The free planting limit is **one tree per visitor per UTC day**. A repeated plant request on the same day does not add another free tree. The server can also add a planting to a nearby grove, or add growth when space is limited. Read the result message rather than assuming that every click creates a separate tree. For example, a first visit can help an existing tree grow. Choosing Plant your tree then requests your own contribution. Returning later that day can add more growth energy, while the daily planting check prevents another free tree from the same visitor. A sponsored tree follows a separate paid flow. ## How does the shared forest grow? Shared Forest uses six numbered tree stages: 0 is a grass patch, 1 a sprout, 2 a sapling, 3 a young tree, 4 a mature tree and 5 an ancient tree. These stages describe the illustration and the stored growth state. The stages are not measurements of a physical tree's age or size. Nearby ancient trees can become a grove. A grove retains the contribution of absorbed trees, so a group can look different without losing those trees from the total. Groves have four levels: grove, wood, forest and ancient forest. The landscape can therefore become denser as traffic adds growth. The live counters show trees growing, plantings today and visits. The tree total includes trees absorbed into groves; it is not a count of separate tree pictures currently on screen. The people and AI-agent visit split appears when enough traffic is available. These values come from the server and change as the shared forest changes. Read [how trees and groves grow](/guides/forest-growth) for the full growth rules. ## How do you explore the forest? Choose **Explore the forest** to collapse the introduction and give the map more room. Drag the map to move around. Select a tree to open its details. Use Show the whole forest to return to a wider view, and Forest details to reopen the introduction. Keyboard controls work when the forest map has focus: arrow keys move the view, plus and minus change the zoom, H shows the whole forest, F toggles fullscreen, and Enter finds your tree. Escape leaves fullscreen or closes an open panel. The map's accessible label also lists these controls. Shared Forest follows the browser's Reduced Motion preference. Reduced Motion removes arrival animations, tree sway and seasonal particles, and shows growth at its final scale. Light and season follow your local clock and calendar. Two visitors can see different lighting while viewing the same shared trees. ## What does a tree sponsorship include? A sponsorship adds a premium digital tree painted from your wish, with a display name and an optional link. Sponsored trees carry an amber ribbon and a Sponsored label. The sponsorship term is 12 months. Choose a one-time purchase or an annual subscription; the current total and terms appear before payment. Start with Sponsor a tree, choose the quantity, design the tree and place the tree in the forest. The confirmation page shows the order for review. A paid sponsorship needs a Shared Forest account. Free visiting and planting remain available without an account. The price table on [Sponsor a tree](/sponsor) shows the current prices. An AI agent can help prepare a sponsorship, but the person confirms the terms and pays on the website. An agent's draft order is not a completed purchase. A sponsored name or link identifies a paid contribution; it does not change the free planting limit or represent a physical reforestation project. Read [what a tree sponsorship includes](/guides/sponsored-trees) before you choose a plan. ## Can AI agents visit and plant? AI agents can read the forest and request a free planting through the public HTTP API or the product MCP server. The plant_tree tool makes the planting request. Agent plantings appear as crystal trees and count as agent traffic. Automated bots are classified separately and do not plant trees. Read [how people and AI agents contribute](/guides/visitors-and-agents) for the daily limit and traffic rules. MCP is a standard that connects AI applications to external tools and data. The [official MCP introduction](https://modelcontextprotocol.io/docs/getting-started/intro) explains that connection. Shared Forest provides a product server for forest actions and a documentation server for reading published guidance. The [Shared Forest agent repository](https://github.com/ArneFfm/shared-forest-agents) contains the plugin configuration and skills. The [Developers: API, MCP and docs](/developers) guide lists endpoints, limits and examples. Reading the public forest and free planting need no API key. Account tools use a separate authorization flow. ## How do live updates reach visitors? Shared Forest runs on Cloudflare Workers. A visit request goes to a queue, then a worker updates the stored forest. A queue buffers messages for processing after the initial request, as described in [Cloudflare's queue documentation](https://developers.cloudflare.com/queues/reference/how-queues-works/). Acceptance of a request means that the visit was queued, not that a tree is already visible. A WebSocket connection carries forest changes to connected browsers. WebSockets support a lasting, two-way connection, and Durable Objects can coordinate updates across clients. [Cloudflare's WebSocket documentation](https://developers.cloudflare.com/durable-objects/best-practices/websockets/) describes those capabilities. Shared Forest normally shows changes within seconds; network interruptions can delay updates. ## What data does free planting use? A growth-only page load sends no visitor identifier in its growth event. A free plant request uses the visitor's IP address and User-Agent to make a daily salted SHA-256 hash for the planting check. The forest counter stores the hash rather than the raw IP address. This check is not an account or a permanent public visitor profile. Account and purchase flows handle additional information, including email and order records. The [privacy policy](/datenschutz) explains those flows and data rights. Shared Forest is created and operated by [Arne Kellmann](/about); the [operator details](/impressum) and [contact page](/contact) identify who maintains the service. ## More - [llms.txt](https://sharedforest.com/llms.txt) - [Full agent guide](https://sharedforest.com/llms-full.txt) - [Developer portal](https://sharedforest.com/developers.md) - [OpenAPI](https://sharedforest.com/openapi.json) - [MCP server](https://sharedforest.com/mcp)