# Zendesk: 8 point Door Gap
- Site: zendesk.com
- Scanned: 2026-09-08
- Scan type: Basic scan
- Business type: b2b_saas
- Report: https://www.seconddoor.io/r/zendesk-ds4r5y
- Scanner version: 12
Zendesk publishes prices and welcomes AI crawlers, but offers no machine readable API spec and no self-serve key issuance for agents to build integrations.
## Scores
| Measure | Score |
| --- | --- |
| Humans | 68/100 |
| Agents | 60/100 |
| Composite | 64/100 |
| Door Gap | 8 points |
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 11 of 15 requests, but could not find a published agent interface. It came up empty on 3 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
- ok      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 OpenAPI specification is published, forcing agents to write API clients by hand from prose documentation.** (programmatic_onboarding)
3. **Form inputs carry no validation rules or error guidance, leaving visitors without feedback if they enter invalid data.** (error_recovery)
The evidence and the recommended fix for each are on the report page: https://www.seconddoor.io/r/zendesk-ds4r5y
## 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.
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/zendesk-ds4r5y
## The agent door
- **machine_discoverability** 100/100. No AI crawler is blocked by robots.txt or user agent rules. The site serves a real browser normally, publishes llms.txt, declares 1699 URLs in a sitemap, and embeds 13 schema.org types on the homepage including SoftwareApplication.
- **programmatic_onboarding** 18/100. Authentication is documented at /developers/, but no OpenAPI spec exists at any of the 5 standard paths checked. No self-serve API key issuance is available.
- **pricing_legibility** 85/100. 2 prices are readable without JavaScript on the pricing page: $19 and $55. The page renders 6 prices total including $115, $50, and $83. An enterprise tier routes to sales, which is standard practice.
- **agent_aware_instrumentation** 8/100. No MCP manifest is published at any of the 3 standard paths checked. No ai-plugin.json exists. No Web Bot Auth signals are present. The site offers no machine readable protocol for agents to discover and invoke its capabilities, leaving.
- **machine_fetchable_trust** 85/100. security.txt is published at /.well-known/security.txt with a contact route for machines. The homepage answers automated requests with HTTP 200 and serves structured data.
- **commercial_rails** 65/100. Prices are published in raw HTML, a self serve signup form is reachable from the homepage.
## The human door
- **steps_to_first_value** 80/100. The primary call to action, 'Try for free', reaches a signup form in 2 steps from the homepage. The form itself is a single page. This is a short path to trial access, though what happens after submission could not be verified in this scan.
- **required_fields** 90/100. The signup form contains 18 fields, and 0 of them are marked as required. A visitor can submit the form with minimal information. This removes friction from the human signup path.
- **verification_walls** 65/100. No verification requirement appears on the signup page itself. However, email verification or other checks may occur after submission, which this scan could not observe. The visible form presents no walls.
- **error_recovery** 35/100. 0 of 26 form inputs carry validation rules, descriptions, or live error regions. The form offers no inline guidance if a visitor enters invalid data.
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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