# Appcues: agent door 28, human door not measured
- Site: appcues.com
- Scanned: 2026-09-08
- Scan type: Basic scan
- Business type: b2b_saas
- Report: https://www.seconddoor.io/r/appcues-66kcdy
- Scanner version: 15
Appcues publishes pricing only through JavaScript, blocking agents from computing cost before signup.
## Scores
| Measure | Score |
| --- | --- |
| Humans | not measured |
| Agents | 28/100 (5/6 dimensions) |
| Composite | 28/100 |
Agent door only. The human door could not be measured on this scan. A Door Gap needs both doors, so this scan does not report one.
## What the machine actually did
The site refused automated access at www.appcues.com, so the agent could not read the developer documentation.
- ok      reach the site at all
- ok      find out whether machines are welcome
- ok      ask whether the door opens for requests carrying the AI crawlers' names
- ok      read the site's own guide for language models
- ok      find out what pages exist
- missing find a contact route for machines
- missing find a published agent interface
- missing find an agent plugin manifest
- missing find out whether verified agents are recognised
- missing read the homepage as data rather than as a page
- missing find a machine readable API spec
- blocked read the developer documentation
- ok      read the prices without running JavaScript
- missing find a comparison page worth citing
- ok      walk the way a visitor would, to a signup form or a product
## Top issues
1. **docs.appcues.com turn the honest automated client away while serving a real browser, so the search crawlers that would cite the page are turned away by a rule about the client.** (machine_discoverability)
2. **No comparison or alternatives page exists, which is the page an assistant cites when a buyer asks it to shortlist vendors.** (machine_discoverability)
3. **Documentation refuses HTTP requests from automated clients, blocking agents from reading the API specification.** (programmatic_onboarding)
The evidence and the recommended fix for each are on the report page: https://www.seconddoor.io/r/appcues-66kcdy
## Files generated from this scan
- **Let verified assistants through** at `notes`, 1 hour, developer. Verify: The next scan opens the homepage and the key pages in a real browser and under the search crawler names, and every one is served.
- **A comparison page brief** at `/compare/appcues-vs-competitor`, 3 hours, no developer needed. Verify: The next scan finds a comparison page listed in the sitemap or linked from the homepage, and reads its text without JavaScript.
- **robots.txt rules for AI crawlers** at `/robots.txt`, 10 minutes, no developer needed. Verify: The next scan reads robots.txt and finds every search and agent crawler allowed, none of them kept off product or pricing paths.
- **Machine interfaces: where you stand** at `notes`, 10 minutes, no developer needed. Verify: The next scan finds the interface you published answering at its well-known path, and that check passes.
- **Organization structured data** at `homepage`, 15 minutes, developer. Verify: The next scan reads Organization and WebSite nodes in the homepage JSON-LD and the structured data check passes.
- **security.txt** at `/.well-known/security.txt`, 10 minutes, no developer needed. Verify: The next scan fetches /.well-known/security.txt as text and the security.txt check passes.
Each file is written from what this scan found on the site. The content is in the JSON once the evidence is opened: https://www.seconddoor.io/api/reports/appcues-66kcdy
## The agent door
- **machine_discoverability** 72/100. The site serves a real browser normally, publishes a sitemap with 517 URLs, and declares llms.txt. No user agent rule blocks AI crawlers by name. However, the homepage carries no schema.org markup, so machines cannot extract product.
- **programmatic_onboarding** 10/100. .
- **pricing_legibility** not measured. Could not verify: this scan did not reach the pages that would show it.
- **agent_aware_instrumentation** 8/100. No MCP manifest is published at any of the 3 standard paths checked. The site does not declare support for Model Context Protocol or any other agent-aware protocol.
- **machine_fetchable_trust** 40/100. No security.txt is published at /.well-known/security.txt. The homepage answers automated requests normally, but the site provides no machine-readable security contact or vulnerability disclosure policy.
- **commercial_rails** 10/100. .
## The human door
- **steps_to_first_value** not measured. Could not verify: this scan did not reach the pages that would show it.
- **required_fields** not measured. Could not verify: this scan did not reach the pages that would show it.
- **verification_walls** not measured. Could not verify: this scan did not reach the pages that would show it.
- **error_recovery** not measured. Could not verify: this scan did not reach the pages that would show it.
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Scored by SecondDoor. Method: https://www.seconddoor.io/methodology
Scan another site: https://www.seconddoor.io
Rate an issue or this report: POST https://www.seconddoor.io/api/feedback, or the rate_fix tool on https://www.seconddoor.io/api/mcp