UCP Manifest

What this parameter measures

Does your site expose a Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) manifest at /.well-known/ucp so AI commerce agents can discover the services and capabilities you offer? This parameter checks for exactly that. friendly4AI fetches the file, parses it as JSON, and counts two things: the entries under services and the capabilities — both top-level capabilities and the capabilities nested inside each service. A manifest is considered valid when it declares at least one service and at least one capability. This is a commerce-conditional parameter, so its weight applies only when the scan detects commerce signals on the site.

Why it matters for AI-readiness

As AI shopping and transaction agents emerge, they need a machine-readable way to learn what a merchant can do before they act. A UCP manifest is that contract: it lists your services (for example checkout, catalog, or order tracking) and the capabilities behind each one, so an agent can plan a purchase or query availability without scraping product pages. For commerce sites, this turns AI agents from passive readers into active customers; for non-commerce sites the parameter is conditional and does not penalize you. Publishing a valid UCP manifest is an early bet on agent-driven commerce becoming a primary channel.

How we score it

This AI-Specific Signals parameter is a gradient scored across three tiers under the v4.4 methodology, and the scanner matches the published rubric exactly. It passes (100) when /.well-known/ucp is fetched and the JSON is valid: at least one service AND at least one capability are declared. It scores partial (50) when the file is fetched but the JSON is malformed, or it parses yet declares no service or no capability. It fails (0) when no file is found or the response is blank. Because UCP is commerce-conditional, its contribution to your overall score is gated on the scan detecting commerce signals — a non-commerce site is not marked down for omitting it.

How to fix common issues

• If your site supports commerce or service transactions, publish a JSON manifest at /.well-known/ucp describing your services and their capabilities.
• Declare at least one entry under services and at least one capability (top-level or nested in a service) — both are required to reach the pass tier.
• Validate the JSON syntax before publishing; a malformed file is fetched but scores only partial.
• Keep service and capability definitions specific (checkout, catalog, order-status) so agents can map them to real actions.
• Re-scan after publishing to confirm the manifest is fetched and recognized as valid.