Agent Onboarding Documentation

What this parameter measures

Does your site link to documentation that helps an agent or developer integrate with you? This parameter checks for that. friendly4AI scans the homepage HTML for <a href> links to common documentation paths — /developers, /developer, /documentation, /docs/api, /docs/getting-started, /api-reference, /api-docs, /openapi, /swagger, /getting-started, /quickstart, /developer-guide — and for a <meta name="ai-agent"> tag. Editorial sections such as /video/, /news/, or /health/ are excluded so a newsroom path is never mistaken for developer docs.

Why it matters for AI-readiness

A discoverable spec tells an agent what your API offers; onboarding docs tell it how to start — how to authenticate, what the rate limits are, and what a real request looks like. When a getting-started guide and an API reference are linked from your homepage, both autonomous agents and the developers who build integrations can self-serve. Sites that bury or omit this material force every integration to begin with guesswork, which slows adoption and raises the chance of broken calls.

How we score it

This is a gradient AI-Specific Signals parameter, and the scanner matches the published rubric. It passes (100) when documentation is comprehensive: three or more docs links, or the pairing of a getting-started/quickstart link with an API-reference link. It scores partial (50) when only basic material is found, such as one or two docs links or just an ai-agent meta tag. It fails (0) when no docs links or agent meta tags are discoverable. Unlike the API-conditional checks in this category, this parameter sits in the AI-Specific Integration group and is not gated on API detection. It is scored on every site, because onboarding docs help agents whether or not a formal API spec is published.

How to fix common issues

• Publish a dedicated developer or agent documentation page and link it from your homepage navigation or footer.
• Provide both a getting-started/quickstart guide and an API-reference page — that pairing alone reaches the pass tier.
• Cover authentication steps, rate limits, and example requests in the docs so agents can self-serve.
• Add a <meta name="ai-agent" ...> tag pointing to your docs as an extra machine-readable hint.
• Avoid placing developer docs under editorial paths like /news/ or /video/, which the scanner excludes.