# An Agent Lands on Your Homepage — What Can It Actually Read?

> Source: <https://dev.to/spread2009/an-agent-lands-on-your-homepage-what-can-it-actually-read-1llp>
> Published: 2026-10-09 09:14:53+00:00

An AI agent evaluating a vendor does what a human does: it opens the site and looks for proof. The difference is speed and format — the agent gives you seconds, not minutes, and it wants JSON, not hero banners. Until recently, an agent landing on agentbadge.xyz found a page built for humans and nothing else — while our own readiness scanner was grading *other* sites on exactly the signals we lacked. The cobbler had no shoes. We fixed that: the entire discovery surface is now **generated from live sources**, served free with no auth, and verified by our own scanner in CI.

Eleven machine-readable manifests, all `200 OK`, all free, all generated — not hand-maintained:

```
/.well-known/agent-card.json        A2A v1.0 — who we are, skills[]
/.well-known/api-catalog            RFC 9727 linkset — every API entry
/.well-known/erc8004-agent.json     on-chain identity registration
/.well-known/mcp/server-card.json   MCP capabilities + tools surface
/.well-known/agent-evaluation.json  verification ladder (claims→refs)
/.well-known/owner-questions.json   "who runs this" for due-diligence
/.well-known/did.json               did:web:agentbadge.xyz document
/.well-known/did-configuration.json signed domain linkage (VC-JWT)
/.well-known/jwks.json              real Ed25519 key, kid'd
/.well-known/security.txt           RFC 9116, Expires generated +1y
/llms.txt                           agent-oriented sitemap
```

The agent-card alone answers the A2A handshake: name, provider, `supportedInterfaces[]`, `skills[]` with tags and examples, and `securitySchemes` declaring `x402` as the payment rail. One GET and a foreign agent knows our identity, capabilities, and how to pay.

Not from a copywriter — from the code itself. A manifest registry collects the same live sources the runtime uses (`openapi.ts`, route config, `blog-data.ts`, the SKU catalog), and every manifest is a **projection** of that truth:

`bun run gen:discovery` writes snapshots under `public/.well-known/`; manual edits are banned.` git diff --exit-code` — if a manifest drifted from code, the build fails.
Ours *cannot go stale* without the build telling us.

`llms.txt` — the de-facto convention for telling an LLM "start here": H1 title, a blockquote describing the platform, `##` sections of named links. Ours is generated with machine-readable entry points, quick start, free and paid endpoints — and the services section anchors into the same `/api/v1/services` catalog that powers the bazaar extension on every 402.

Because the reader might not be a browser. `Accept: text/markdown` on any page returns the markdown representation — verified live:

``` bash
$ curl -sH "Accept: text/markdown" https://agentbadge.xyz/blog
content-type: text/markdown; charset=utf-8
```

Blog articles carry `.md` mirrors too (`/blog/arc-c10-payer-binding.md` → `200 text/markdown`). HTML stays canonical; `<link rel="alternate" type="text/markdown">` points machines at the twin.

`agent-evaluation.json` — a **verification ladder**: claims ordered by check-time, each with `action` + `ref`:

```
{
  "depth": "5s",
  "checks": [
    { "claim": "mainnet deployment — AgentEventLog on Arc",
      "action": "open",
      "ref": "https://explorer.arc.io/address/0x1bb6…4700" }
  ]
}
```

5s: we exist on-chain and publish a card. 60s: manifest validity, live OpenAPI, refusal contract. Deeper: dogfood txs and audit trails. `owner-questions.json` answers enterprise due-diligence (operator, jurisdiction, contact) in the same shape.

We run our own scanner on ourselves — the same 142-rule engine that grades foreign sites: `mcp/server-card.json` (AB-006), `llms.txt` (AB-014), JSON-LD/OG (AB-015/016), `ai.txt` (AB-017) — against agentbadge.xyz in CI. **100% pass required.** A broken manifest fails our own product's grade on our own domain.

`text/markdown`, `.md` mirrors on articles — generated, not hand-edited.`ai-plugin.json` (ChatGPT Plugins EOL 2024 — dead manifest is cargo cult); `/.well-known/agent.json` → `301` to `agent-card.json`.` curl https://agentbadge.xyz/.well-known/agent-card.json` — or scan us: `npx agentbadge-scan agentbadge.xyz`.
*C14 in the Arc Campaign series. C15 continues — the agent found us, now it reads the price list.*

*Originally published at [agentbadge.xyz](https://agentbadge.xyz/blog/arc-c14-agent-discovery).*