# Ashby: 15 point Door Gap
- Site: ashbyhq.com
- Scanned: 2026-09-08
- Scan type: Basic scan
- Business type: b2b_saas
- Report: https://www.seconddoor.io/r/ashbyhq-e6r3gc
- Scanner version: 12
Ashby publishes pricing and welcomes AI crawlers, but offers no API key without a sales conversation and no machine-readable specification for integration.
## Scores
| Measure | Score |
| --- | --- |
| Humans | 68/100 |
| Agents | 53/100 |
| Composite | 61/100 |
| Door Gap | 15 points |
| Percentile | 40th |
The human score is the mean of the four human dimensions, the agent score the mean of the six agent dimensions, and the Door Gap the difference between them.
## What the machine actually did
The agent got through 10 of 15 requests, but could not find a contact route for machines. It came up empty on 4 other checks too.
- 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
- ok      read the homepage as data rather than as a page
- missing find a machine readable API spec
- ok      read the developer documentation
- ok      read the prices without running JavaScript
- ok      find a comparison page worth citing
- ok      walk the way a visitor would, to a signup form or a product
## Top issues
1. **No MCP manifest was found at the 3 standard paths checked, so an agent has no published machine door to this site.** (agent_aware_instrumentation)
2. **No security.txt is published, so a machine has no documented route to report a problem.** (machine_fetchable_trust)
3. **No machine-readable API specification exists, requiring developers to write clients by hand from prose documentation.** (programmatic_onboarding)
The evidence and the recommended fix for each are on the report page: https://www.seconddoor.io/r/ashbyhq-e6r3gc
## Files generated from this scan
- **Pricing as Offer structured data** at `pricing page`, 20 minutes, developer. Verify: The next scan reads Offer structured data with a price and currency on the pricing page, and the pricing check credits it.
- **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.
- **pricing.md** at `/pricing.md`, 20 minutes, no developer needed. Verify: The next scan fetches /pricing.md as text and records pricing as machine readable.
- **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/ashbyhq-e6r3gc
## The agent door
- **machine_discoverability** 100/100. No AI crawler is blocked by robots.txt or user agent rules. A real browser is served the page normally. The homepage carries 4 schema.org types, a sitemap lists 475 URLs, llms.txt is published, and comparison pages render without.
- **programmatic_onboarding** 18/100. Authentication is documented at developers.ashbyhq.com, but no OpenAPI spec exists at any of the 6 standard paths checked. No self-serve API key issuance is published.
- **pricing_legibility** 85/100. 5 prices are readable without JavaScript on the pricing page, ranging from $90 to $400 per month. No tier is gated behind a demo or contact-sales requirement. Currency is USD and pricing is per-seat.
- **agent_aware_instrumentation** 8/100. No MCP manifest is published at any of the 3 standard paths checked. No ai-plugin.json or Web Bot Auth signals are present. The site does not declare machine-readable integration points for agents.
- **machine_fetchable_trust** 40/100. No security.txt is published at /.well-known/security.txt. The homepage responds to automated requests with HTTP 200 and serves structured data. Trust signals are minimal.
- **commercial_rails** 65/100. Prices are published in raw HTML on the pricing page with no sales gate. A self-serve signup form is reachable from the homepage in 2 steps and asks for 4 fields with none required. Payment is not requested on signup.
## The human door
- **steps_to_first_value** 80/100. The primary call to action on the homepage leads to a signup form in 2 steps. The form itself is presented immediately without intermediate pages.
- **required_fields** 90/100. The signup form on the entry path contains 4 fields, and 0 of them are marked required. No validation rules are enforced on any input. The form imposes minimal friction.
- **verification_walls** 65/100. No verification requirement is visible on the signup page itself. Email confirmation, phone verification, or identity checks may occur after submission, but the form does not declare them. The initial barrier is low.
- **error_recovery** 35/100. 0 of 4 inputs on the signup form carry validation rules or constraint descriptions. No inline error containers or live regions are present to guide correction. A visitor who enters invalid data receives no help recovering.
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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