Learn/The agent-readiness checklist
The agent-readiness checklist
Last updated 2026-10-15
Agent readiness comes down to five categories: discoverability (robots.txt that allows AI crawlers, a sitemap, a canonical URL), agent instructions (llms.txt, meta description, page title), machine-readable structure (JSON-LD, Open Graph, one h1, semantic landmarks, server-rendered content), actionability (labeled forms, named buttons, a navigable nav), and trust (HTTPS, freshness signals, alt text). Work through them in that order.
1. Discoverability
Publish robots.txt. Make sure GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, Bingbot, and CCBot are not disallowed from the pages you want read. Reference your sitemap from robots.txt. Add a canonical link to every page.
2. Agent instructions
Add /llms.txt with a title, a summary, and sections of links. Add a meta description of 70-160 characters and a page title of 30-60 characters on every page. Optionally add /llms-full.txt with your full documentation.
3. Machine-readable structure
Add JSON-LD for Organization and WebSite at minimum; add Article, Product, or FAQPage where relevant. Include Open Graph and Twitter card tags. Use exactly one h1 with no skipped heading levels. Wrap the page in header, nav, main, and footer. Ensure the primary content is in the raw HTML, not added by JavaScript.
4. Actionability
Label every form field with a label element or aria-label. Give every button and link an accessible name. Keep CAPTCHAs off primary public forms where possible, or offer an alternative path. Link to your API docs or OpenAPI spec. Keep at least three internal links in your nav.
5. Trust and freshness
Redirect all HTTP traffic to HTTPS. Expose Last-Modified or a dateModified property. Provide alt text on every image. Set Content-Security-Policy and Strict-Transport-Security headers.
FAQ
Where do I start?
robots.txt and llms.txt take minutes and unblock crawling. Then fix server rendering and landmarks, which carry the most weight in the score.
How long does the whole list take?
Most static sites can complete every item in a day. Client-side SPAs need the most work because of server rendering.