Minimum Agent Readiness by Goal: Signups, Ranking, Product Use, and More

Minimum means a canonical, crawlable page with one clear category and audience, useful title and heading, descriptive navigation, product facts, limitations, current dates, and source or policy links. Include the URL in a valid sitemap and verify that the response is the intended HTML. Test by asking an agent to find one named fact, preserve its constraint, and cite the canonical page. [AR1][AR2][AR5]

Do not claim recommendation readiness because a model mentioned the brand. Record the query, page, extraction, citation, as-of date, and whether the agent could compare the product with a plausible alternative. Search visibility, social referrals, AI referrals, and verified downstream actions are separate measures. [AR1][AR2][AR7]

Minimum means labeled fields with suitable types and autocomplete, explicit required state and consent, a real named submit button, specific validation, preserved input, focus recovery, duplicate protection, and a status that distinguishes accepted, rejected, pending, and uncertain. Test with synthetic data and stop at review unless a sandbox explicitly permits submission. [AR3][AR4][AR7]

Add identity and authorization before making the flow autonomous. The agent should know what account or recipient it is acting for, what data is being sent, why it is needed, and what happens next. A receipt should contain a reference and recovery route without exposing private form values or allowing a delayed response to trigger a second lead. [AR7][AR8]

Minimum means explicit date, time, timezone, duration, provider or resource, location, availability, cancellation policy, and any payment requirement. The review state should show the exact slot and attendee before confirmation. Test a synthetic slot, include a delayed response, and assert that one booking reference or one clear failure exists. [AR3][AR4][AR7]

A booking is not complete because a calendar control moved. Reconcile the receipt against the authoritative schedule and distinguish pending from confirmed. Give the agent a safe change or cancellation route and keep user identity and consent at the execution boundary. [AR7][AR8]

Minimum means product name, variant or SKU, price, availability, compatibility, shipping and returns context, cart state, and full estimated total visible before payment. Let a safe fixture compare and configure items and reach a review cart without payment credentials. Confirm quantity, variant, destination, and total at the last safe stop. [AR2][AR5][AR7]

Keep payment and order placement behind fresh approval and server-side checks. Use idempotency, pending states, and an order receipt to protect retries. A product schema or green checkout button does not prove that an agent selected the right variant or understood shipping, tax, return, and external consequence. [AR5][AR7][AR8]

Minimum means a current OpenAPI, MCP, catalog, or CLI contract with stable operation names, typed parameters and responses, authentication and authorization, examples, errors, limits, retries, and consequence classification. Verify one harmless operation against the deployed service and keep the server as the source of truth for target and permission checks. [AR6][AR7][AR8]

Make uncertain states explicit. A provider timeout should not make an agent repeat a write blindly. Return idempotency or current state, record a safe receipt, and require fresh approval for external, financial, permission, or destructive operations. Test unauthorized, wrong-target, stale-approval, duplicate, injected, and provider-failure paths. [AR6][AR7][AR8][AR9]