--- title: "AI agent readiness checklist for Shopify stores - Glass Aisle" description: "The 25 things AI shopping agents need from a Shopify store, from robots.txt and structured data to checkout, with how to fix each one." url: "https://glassaisle.com/checks" --- # The agent-readiness checklist for Shopify stores AI shopping agents read stores differently from people. These are the 25 checks a Glass Aisle audit runs, in six dimensions worth 100 points. Each one links to what it measures, why agents care and how to fix it on Shopify. ## Access: can agents reach your pages? - A1 [Let AI agents read your store through robots.txt](https://glassaisle.com/checks/robots-txt-ai-agents) Search engines and AI assistants read robots.txt before anything else on your site. A rule written for one crawler can keep out the ones that recommend your products to shoppers. Worth 6 points. - A2 [Let honest crawlers past your bot protection](https://glassaisle.com/checks/bot-protection-ai-agents) Bot protection is meant to stop scrapers and fraud. Set too tight, it also turns away the crawlers and assistants that announce exactly who they are. Worth 5 points. - A3 [Keep pop-ups from hiding your products](https://glassaisle.com/checks/pop-ups-hide-products) Browser agents load your pages in a real browser, as a shopper does. If the first thing they see is a pop-up that covers the product, many of them never get past it. Worth 4 points. - A4 [Put price and stock in your page's HTML](https://glassaisle.com/checks/product-data-without-javascript) Many agents fetch your page and read the HTML as it arrives, without running any scripts. If your theme fills in the price or the stock status with JavaScript, those agents never see it. Worth 5 points. ## Discovery: can agents find your products? - D1 [Make sure your sitemap lists your products](https://glassaisle.com/checks/sitemap-coverage) Your sitemap is the list of pages you hand to search engines and agents. Shopify writes one for you, so most problems come from something that changed it or from links that no longer reach a product. Worth 4 points. - D2 [Publish your store's agent profile (UCP)](https://glassaisle.com/checks/ucp-agent-profile) The Universal Commerce Protocol, or UCP, is how AI agents learn what a store can do for them, such as search its catalog, build a cart or hand a shopper to checkout. A store announces this in a profile at /.well-known/ucp. Worth 5 points. - D3 [Make sure agents can find your products by name](https://glassaisle.com/checks/agent-catalog-search) Agents that shop through UCP don't browse your pages first. They search your catalog and work from what comes back, so a product the search misses is invisible to them. Worth 3 points. - D4 [Add an llms.txt file, and keep it short](https://glassaisle.com/checks/llms-txt) llms.txt is a short Markdown file at the root of a site that points AI tools to its most useful pages. It's cheap to add, and few agents read it yet. Worth 1 point. - D5 [Give each product one address agents can follow](https://glassaisle.com/checks/canonical-product-urls) A Shopify product can be reached at many addresses, such as through each collection it's in. The canonical tag tells agents which one is the real one, and links in your collection pages' HTML let them find products at all. Worth 2 points. ## Product data: can agents understand what you sell? - P1 [Give every product page complete structured data](https://glassaisle.com/checks/product-structured-data) Structured data is a block of JSON-LD in the page that states, in a form software reads without guessing, what the product is and what it costs. It's the most direct way to tell an agent the facts. Worth 6 points. - P2 [Add the product details agents use to compare](https://glassaisle.com/checks/recommended-product-fields) Beyond the basics, a handful of fields let agents tell your product apart, match it to the same product elsewhere, and answer whether it's in stock. Worth 5 points. - P3 [List every variant in your structured data](https://glassaisle.com/checks/product-variants-structured-data) When a product comes in sizes or colors, an agent needs each option, its price and whether it's in stock. If your structured data describes only one variant, the rest are invisible. Worth 4 points. - P4 [Make your structured data match the page](https://glassaisle.com/checks/structured-data-matches-page) Structured data and the visible page should say the same thing. When they disagree, an agent may quote a price the shopper never sees. Worth 4 points. - P5 [Answer shoppers' questions on your product pages](https://glassaisle.com/checks/product-pages-answer-buyer-questions) Shoppers ask agents specific questions: what it's made of, how it fits, whether it's dishwasher safe. An agent answers from your page's text, and when the answer isn't there it guesses or picks a store that has it. Worth 6 points. ## Policies and trust: can agents answer pre-purchase questions? - T1 [Put your return policy in structured data](https://glassaisle.com/checks/return-policy-structured-data) Shoppers ask agents about returns before they buy. A MerchantReturnPolicy block states your terms in a form software reads exactly. Worth 4 points. - T2 [Put shipping cost and delivery time in structured data](https://glassaisle.com/checks/shipping-details-structured-data) Shoppers ask an agent what delivery costs and how long it takes. OfferShippingDetails puts both answers in your structured data. Worth 4 points. - T3 [Answer shipping and returns questions in plain words](https://glassaisle.com/checks/policies-answer-buyer-questions) Before they buy, shoppers ask an agent how long delivery takes and whether returns are free. The agent answers from your policy pages, so those pages need to state the answers plainly. Worth 4 points. - T4 [Show agents who runs your store](https://glassaisle.com/checks/business-identity) Agents weigh whether a store is real and reachable before they send a shopper to it. Three plain signals answer that. Worth 3 points. ## Checkout path: can an agent get a shopper to checkout? - C1 [Tell agents whether they can check out on your store](https://glassaisle.com/checks/agent-checkout) Some AI channels can take a shopper through checkout without leaving the conversation. Your UCP profile tells them whether your store supports it. Worth 4 points. - C2 [Make add to cart easy for browser agents](https://glassaisle.com/checks/add-to-cart-for-agents) Browser agents use your store as a shopper does, by clicking. They find buttons and options by the names screen readers read, so an unlabeled or custom control can stop them. Worth 4 points. - C3 [Keep cart links working](https://glassaisle.com/checks/cart-links) An agent that has found the right product can hand the shopper a link that opens checkout with it already in the cart. On Shopify that's a cart permalink, such as yourstore.com/cart/12345:1. Worth 4 points. - C4 [Let shoppers check out without an account](https://glassaisle.com/checks/guest-checkout) When an agent hands a shopper to your checkout, a forced sign-in is one more step between them and the order. Worth 3 points. ## Agent experience: how efficiently can agents read your pages? - X2 [Keep product pages within what agents read](https://glassaisle.com/checks/page-size-for-agents) Agents read pages within a budget. A page with too much text or too much code gets cut, and the cut can fall before the details that matter. Worth 4 points. - X3 [Give product pages a structure agents can follow](https://glassaisle.com/checks/accessible-page-structure) Agents rely on the same structure screen readers use: headings, landmarks and labels. A page built well for accessibility is easier for an agent to read. Worth 5 points. - X4 [Offer agents a Markdown version of your pages](https://glassaisle.com/checks/markdown-for-agents) Some agents ask for a page as Markdown, plain text with light formatting, because it's much smaller than HTML. A site can answer that request with a Markdown version of the same page. Worth 1 point. How the points add up to a score and a grade is on the [methodology](https://glassaisle.com/methodology) page. ## Check your store against the list The free audit reads your store the way an agent does and emails you your score, your grade and your top findings, with the evidence for each. This form sends GET https://glassaisle.com/audit with store (Store address). [Glass Aisle](https://glassaisle.com/) Glass Aisle audits how well AI shopping agents can find, understand and buy from your Shopify store, and shows you the evidence. 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