# AnswerReady — full machine-readable guide

Scan any public website against an evidence-backed AEO, GEO, and SEO rubric, then inspect every score contribution and validated PlatPhorm enrichment result.

Rubric version: 2026-08-22.1
Scoring: pass earns 100% of criterion weight, warn earns 50%, fail earns 0%.
Coverage: informational observations are evidence-only and remain visible in the complete suite but are excluded from score denominators; skipped, not applicable, unavailable, and error outcomes are excluded from the score denominator and lower coverage instead of being counted as passes or failures.
Validity: every criterion requires at least one source-backed evidence record; scoreVerified confirms deterministic recomputation.
Unified rollup: stored reports preserve the complete normalized test suite from AnswerReady and invoked downstream providers, including pass, partial, failed, unable_to_verify, not_applicable, and informational outcomes with redacted evidence provenance.
AgentReady detail: its scanner and suite versions, target identity, category scores, coverage and applicability accounting, recommendations, safe evidence records, observed resources, trace metadata, and security-attestation state are preserved as visible downstream evidence.
AgentReady compatibility: if a provider returns findings without its report-level envelope, AnswerReady exposes a findings_only completeness state, derives only bounded finding evidence/coverage, and marks omitted upstream fields unable_to_verify.
Staged modes: quick runs local signals plus AgentReady; standard runs all server-side provider lanes, PlatPhormReady plan/execution evidence, and BrowserOps target validation; full additionally permits real BrowserOps execution and bounded PlatPhormReady local verification; browser emphasizes Chromium; network accepts caller measurements; developer emphasizes machine-interface and PlatPhormReady conformity checks. Skipped lanes remain visible as not invoked rather than being treated as target failures.
POST /api/scan and GET /api/v1/scans/{scanId} support application/json or text/markdown negotiation, preserve Vary: Accept, and return structured 406 errors when no supported representation is acceptable.
Downstream evidence includes bounded response status/content type and parsed summaries where available; response bodies, credentials, cookies, and secrets are never exposed.
BrowserOps full/browser runs contribute browser profile, render, console/network/accessibility, screenshot, trace, navigation timing, and bounded PerformanceResourceTiming checks to the unified suite.
SitemapOps target evidence includes child sitemaps, sampled URL reachability/redirect/canonical/noindex/robots results, lastmod quality, external locations, and important platform/product surface coverage. With authenticated same-target scan context, AnswerReady can pass its bounded root sitemap artifact for reuse instead of making SitemapOps refetch that root artifact.
MCP scan_site returns the complete normalized check suite and exposes answerready://scan/{id}/checks alongside evidence and rubric resources. Expensive scan_site calls are rate-limited to five per client window; oversized JSON-RPC batches are rejected instead of silently truncated, and notifications return no response.
MCP score_evidence accepts public-safe criterion observations from trusted scanners and returns deterministic rubric validation without refetching. It does not persist a report; use scan_site or POST /api/scan for fresh fetch and report retention.
Derived scorecards: AnswerReady Core, AgentReady, Is-Agentic compatibility (derived/non-official), API Surface, MCP Capability, Machine Surface, Agent Operability, Trust & Provenance, Search & Discovery, Browser Operability, PlatPhorm Conformity (derived/non-official), and optional Caller Network Quality. API, MCP, and PlatPhormReady scorecards retain their own applicability and coverage; they are not hidden inside a general agent score.
Schema quality: JSON-LD is checked for valid JSON, schema.org context, typed entities, core properties, and stable absolute @id values.

## Categories and criteria
### AI Discovery (25 points)
Public files and policies that let answer engines discover the site.
- llms.txt is available (6): A concise, root-level content map gives answer engines an explicit discovery surface.
- llms-full.txt is available (3): A bounded full-text companion gives agents richer context without scraping the entire site.
- AI crawler policy is explicit (5): Explicit crawler rules are more trustworthy than assuming access from an absent policy.
- MCP discovery manifest is valid (3): A valid MCP manifest advertises real, agent-operable capabilities.
- Agent policy is published (3): A machine-readable agent policy defines safe public and protected behavior.
- AgentReady full test suite is verified (5): A second, purpose-built scanner provides independent evidence for agent discovery and safe operation.

### Crawlability (20 points)
Signals that let crawlers safely find, select, and index canonical pages.
- robots.txt is available (4): robots.txt is the baseline crawl-policy surface.
- XML sitemap is available (6): A valid sitemap provides bounded, explicit URL discovery.
- robots.txt references the sitemap (2): The reference joins crawl policy and URL discovery.
- Canonical URL is declared (4): Canonical selection reduces duplicate and conflicting source identities.
- Page is indexable (4): A page cannot be cited consistently if page-level policy blocks indexing.

### Structured Meaning (18 points)
Machine-readable semantics used for entities, previews, and API discovery.
- JSON-LD is syntactically valid (5): Valid JSON-LD is the strongest page-level machine-readable entity signal.
- JSON-LD identifies useful entity types (3): Typed entities are more useful than syntactically valid but untyped graphs.
- JSON-LD has complete, linked entities (4): Parseable markup still needs schema.org context, typed entities, core properties, and stable identifiers to be dependable.
- Open Graph metadata is complete (4): Stable title, description, image, and type metadata improve source previews.
- Social card metadata is available (1): A card declaration supports consistent previews across secondary discovery channels.
- Machine-readable API schema is available (1): OpenAPI or MCP discovery lets agents verify available operations instead of guessing.

### Answer Quality & Trust (23 points)
Content, attribution, and freshness signals that support defensible citations.
- Title is descriptive (4): A concise title establishes the page's primary answer context.
- Description summarizes the page (4): A useful description provides a compact statement of intent and scope.
- A single primary heading is present (3): One clear H1 gives parsers a stable primary topic.
- Content has useful depth (4): Substantive visible text is more likely to contain answerable, citable detail.
- Content exposes answer structure (3): Question headings, lists, tables, and FAQ markup make answer units easier to extract.
- Authorship or publisher is attributable (3): Attribution supports provenance and confidence in a citation.
- Claims link to supporting sources (1): Outbound source links provide inspectable provenance for factual claims.
- Freshness is machine-readable (1): Published or modified dates help engines reason about time-sensitive claims.

### Reach & UX (14 points)
Syndication, locale, transport, mobile, and response-time readiness.
- Document language is declared (2): Language metadata improves parsing, accessibility, and locale selection.
- RSS or Atom feed is available (3): Feeds provide durable, incremental discovery for changing content.
- Mobile viewport is configured (1): Mobile usability affects both readers and mobile-first indexing.
- Primary HTML responds promptly (5): Fast server response improves crawl efficiency and user access.
- Final page uses HTTPS (3): Secure transport is a baseline trust and integrity requirement.

## Public routes
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/api/health
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/api/v1/health
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/api/docs
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/api/rubric
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/api/mcp
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/api/v1/scans/{id}
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/api/v1/scans/{id}/diff
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/openapi.yaml
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/openapi.json
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/.well-known/api-catalog
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/llms.txt
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/llms-full.txt
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/llms-index.json
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/robots.txt
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/sitemap.xml
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/sitemap-index.xml
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/rss.xml
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/feed.xml
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/atom.xml
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/manifest.webmanifest
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/.well-known/mcp.json
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/.well-known/platphorm.json
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/.well-known/agents.json
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/.well-known/security.txt
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/.well-known/trust.json

## External evidence boundary
PlatPhorm Insights and SitemapOps inputs are schema-validated before sending. Returned JSON is size-bounded and schema-validated. Invalid, unexpected, oversized, or unavailable output is labeled degraded and never presented as verified evidence.

## PlatPhorm contract assessment
For *.platphormnews.com targets only, AnswerReady performs additional public read-only checks for standard routes, health envelopes, discovery files, OpenAPI and shared auth, trust policy, MCP metadata and ping, trace state, Vercel metadata state, and secret hygiene. This separate score never penalizes external sites or changes the general readiness score.
The canonical self-scan matrix includes https://platphormready.platphormnews.com, the PlatPhorm application-readiness and certification service. It remains a target product, not a synthetic scanner provider, and is evaluated through the same applicable sibling scanners. AnswerReady also invokes its independent local conformity plan and, when PLATPHORM_API_KEY is configured, a bounded protected run; declared plans are not execution passes and no numeric equivalence is invented.
Conditional route applicability: /.well-known/ai-plugin.json is not applicable because AnswerReady exposes OpenAPI and MCP directly.
## Public policy and developer pages
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/about
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/contact
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/privacy
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/terms
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/security
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/status
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/corrections
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/editorial-policy
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/ai-policy
- https://answerready.platphormnews.com/developers