Agent Disco report

bbc.co.uk

Grade F · Score 35 / 100

Scanned 20 Aug 2026, 07:37 UTC · Re-scan

Why this grade

This is a failing grade. The foundational signals agents look for robots.txt AI-agent rules and OpenAPI specification discovery aren't in place yet — start there before anything else.

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Quick wins

Low-cost fixes that would nudge this grade up.

  1. JSON error bodies for API callers Return a JSON error body (application/json or application/problem+json), not an HTML page, when the caller sends `Accept: application/json`.
  2. /ai.txt AI-crawler directives Add a short `/ai.txt` at the site root declaring your AI-crawler usage terms (see spawning.ai/ai-txt).
  3. /llms-full.txt long-form index Add a `/llms-full.txt` — the full-text companion to llms.txt with your key docs inlined for LLMs (see llmstxt.org).
  4. /llms.txt index for LLMs Add a short `/llms.txt` Markdown index of your key URLs (see https://llmstxt.org).
  5. /.well-known/agent.json (A2A AgentCard) Publish an A2A AgentCard at `/.well-known/agent.json` with name, description, skills, and endpoints.

Blocking issues

High-weight checks that aren't passing.

  • OpenAPI specification discovery No OpenAPI spec found at any of 9 conventional paths.
  • robots.txt AI-agent rules Only 1 of 13 AI user-agents can crawl /; 12 blocked.
  • Public MCP registry listing Host bbc.co.uk not listed in any of 2 registry/registries consulted.

Per-category breakdown

Score by check category
Category Score Percent
Anti Bot 15 / 15
100%
Api 0 / 15
0%
Crawl 11 / 23
48%
Docs 3 / 14
21%
Html Meta 2 / 8
25%
Identity 10 / 10
100%
Onboarding 3 / 6
50%
Protocols 0 / 10
0%
Registries 5 / 5
100%

Findings (33)

Anti Bot · 2
Check Status Points Notes
Anti-bot interstitial pass 10 / 10 No anti-bot interstitial markers on a single polite homepage request — behavioural anti-bot can still challenge real crawler traffic.
User-agent sniffing pass 5 / 5 Homepage responses for default and curl UAs are effectively identical.
Api · 3
Check Status Points Notes
GraphQL introspection skip No GraphQL endpoint found at any of 3 conventional paths.
JSON error bodies for API callers fail 0 / 5 HTTP 404 served an HTML body for an API-like caller (Accept: application/json).
OpenAPI specification discovery fail 0 / 10 No OpenAPI spec found at any of 9 conventional paths.
Crawl · 3
Check Status Points Notes
RSS/Atom feed skip No RSS/Atom feed found at probed paths or via `<link rel="alternate">`.
robots.txt AI-agent rules fail 1 / 13 Only 1 of 13 AI user-agents can crawl /; 12 blocked.
XML sitemap discovery pass 10 / 10 Sitemap at /sitemap.xml (sitemapindex, 6 entries).
Docs · 2
Check Status Points Notes
Docs platform discoverability warn 3 / 6 Docs found at /docs but platform is custom — crawler-friendliness is unknown.
SDK availability across languages fail 0 / 8 No SDKs discoverable via npm, PyPI, or the docs page.
Html Meta · 3
Check Status Points Notes
JSON-LD structured data warn 2 / 8 JSON-LD present (types: CollectionPage); none are primary or secondary agent-discoverability signals.
meta description info Meta description present (144 characters) (informational — not graded).
Open Graph tags info All three core Open Graph tags present on the homepage (informational — not graded).
Identity · 3
Check Status Points Notes
Email auth (SPF, DMARC, DKIM) info Email auth present: SPF + DMARC (informational — mail trust/deliverability, not graded).
security.txt responsible-disclosure declaration info security.txt at https://www.bbc.co.uk/.well-known/security.txt declares a Contact (informational — a human security-researcher signal, not graded).
TLS + HSTS + HTTPS redirect pass 10 / 10 Valid TLS cert (issuer: C=BE, O=GlobalSign nv-sa, CN=GlobalSign RSA OV SSL CA 2018, expires 2027-01-24), http → https redirect confirmed. (HSTS max-age=31536000 — informational.)
Llm Training · 3
Check Status Points Notes
Common Crawl index presence info Only 1 page(s) from bbc.co.uk in CC-MAIN-2026-30 — marginally present in the corpus (informational — not graded).
Hacker News mentions info 50 verified HN mention(s) of bbc.co.uk (informational — popularity signal, not graded).
Wikipedia article info Wikipedia article "BBC Online" links to bbc.co.uk (https://support.bbc.co.uk/support/history.html) (informational — corpus knowledge, not graded).
Onboarding · 1
Check Status Points Notes
API-key / signup path discoverability warn 3 / 6 Signup/API-key page found at /register but nothing on the homepage or docs links to it — a crawler would have to guess.
Protocols · 2
Check Status Points Notes
Public MCP registry listing fail 0 / 10 Host bbc.co.uk not listed in any of 2 registry/registries consulted.
A2A AgentCard conformance skip No AgentCard at /.well-known/agent.json — nothing to grade.
Registries · 3
Check Status Points Notes
GitHub public repository pass 5 / 5 1 attributable repo(s): bbc/waveform.prototyping.bbc.co.uk (homepage field).
npm SDK package skip No npm packages attributable to bbc.co.uk — name matches without a verifiable attribution signal are not counted.
PyPI SDK package skip No PyPI package at the 2 name(s) probed for bbc.co.uk.
Root Level · 3
Check Status Points Notes
/ai.txt AI-crawler directives skip No /ai.txt present (404) — this is a secondary signal, not a negative one.
/llms-full.txt long-form index skip No /llms-full.txt present (404).
/llms.txt index for LLMs skip No /llms.txt present (404).
Well Known · 5
Check Status Points Notes
/.well-known/agent.json (A2A AgentCard) skip No /.well-known/agent.json present (404).
/.well-known/ai-plugin.json manifest skip No /.well-known/ai-plugin.json present (404).
/.well-known/mcp.json (Model Context Protocol) skip No /.well-known/mcp.json present (404).
OpenID Connect configuration + dynamic registration skip No /.well-known/openid-configuration — site does not advertise an OIDC provider.
/.well-known/openapi.{json,yaml} skip No OpenAPI spec at either well-known path.

Score over time

20 Jul 2026 — F · 35/100 20 Jul 2026 — F · 35/100 20 Aug 2026 — F · 35/100
Latest
35 — flat
Best
35
Worst
35
Scans
3

Scan history

Recent completed scans for bbc.co.uk
When Grade Score Checks Change Open scan
20 Aug 2026, 07:37 F 35 33
Since 20 Jul:

no flips

20 Jul 2026, 12:54 F 35 33
Since 20 Jul:

no flips

20 Jul 2026, 12:52 F 35 33

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