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Methodology

Each checkpoint has a stable id, a stage, a strength and an evidence type. The spec part tells what agents need. The scoring policy tells how we score it.

2026-10-22 Aligned with agentready.org spec 2.0

The spec

Find
Agents can reach the site and discover its pages.
Read
Agents can fetch and parse the content without JavaScript.
Act
Agents can finish tasks through forms, APIs, MCP and auth.
Checkpoints Grouped by stage
Strength and evidence How to read a checkpoint
MUST
Agents fail without it. Fix it first.
SHOULD
Agents work better with it. Most sites need it.
MAY
Useful for some sites. The standard is new.
Info
Policy information. It has no strength.
Measured study
A study measured the effect on agents.
Scanner data
Scanner data shows adoption or failure.
Recommendation
A standard or expert guidance only.

Strength is a spec value and does not change a score. Security headers have no AR practice. They are in Read as the trust baseline for a safe fetch.

agentready.org practices How our checkpoints map to the open spec

Changelog

Version history Current version 2026-10-22
2026-10-22 Added seven checks for the agentready.org practices that the scanner did not cover: pricing page, MCP Apps, NLWeb ask, agent checkout, SDKs and CLI, agent task access and docs pages that answer. All seven are bonus or informational, so core scores do not change. The AR mapping, strength and evidence type are new metadata and do not change scores. Agent task access is MUST in the spec but bonus in the score until a benchmark cycle confirms it. Readiness profile scores can change by a few points, because the new bonus checkpoints count in those profiles. The headline score does not change.
2026-09-02 Made the semantic and discovery checks outcome relevant and retired three checkpoints with weak evidence.
2026-08-29 Revised the FAQPage, interactive surface coverage and OpenAPI quality checks.
2026-08-27 Retired the WebMCP manifest checkpoints because no specification defines a manifest.
2026-08-25 Added soft-404 hygiene, DNS-AID, trust pages, page token budget, API errors, API rate limits and developer docs links.
2026-08-24 First versioned methodology with evidence tiers, score roles and readiness profiles.
Introduced
robots.txt present , AI crawler directives , XML sitemap , llms.txt , Meta robots / X-Robots-Tag , Content freshness signals , Content negotiation (text/markdown) , HTTP bot accessibility , Link response headers , Content-Usage preferences , AGENTS.md agent guide , Agent content contracts , JSON-LD present , Organization / WebSite schema , High-value schema types , Entity linking via @id , BreadcrumbList markup , Schema validation , FAQPage schema , Author attribution , Server-side rendered content , Heading hierarchy , Semantic HTML elements , Landmarks and ARIA , Image alt text , Language attribute , Descriptive link texts , Question-based headings , Form label coverage , Form field autocomplete , Keyboard navigability , Document title , Button accessible names , aria-hidden misuse , Dynamic widget state , WebMCP declarative API , WebMCP manifest , A2A Agent Card , MCP discovery , OpenAPI / API docs , agents.json , Declarative form quality , Manifest tool schema quality , Interactive surface coverage , API Catalog (RFC 9727) , Agent Skills index , x402 payments , MPP (x-payment-info) , UCP , ACP manifest , AP2 , OpenAPI actionability quality , MCP server card quality , Live OpenAPI verification , Live MCP verification , AI Catalog , HTTPS , HSTS , Content-Security-Policy , X-Content-Type-Options , X-Frame-Options / frame-ancestors , CORS , Referrer-Policy , Tool definition security , Auto-submit risk , OAuth discovery , OAuth protected resource , Agent auth readiness

Scoring policy

The score uses weights and points that are separate from the spec. Only core checkpoints change the overall score.

Weights and grades Version 2026-10-22
AI Content Discovery
30%
Content & Semantics
20%
AI Search Signals
20%
Agent Protocols
15%
Security & Trust
15%

A+ 95+ / A 80+ / B 70+ / C 40+ / D 20+ / F 0+

Scoring document (JSON)

Profile checkpoint mapping Which checkpoints count toward each readiness profile