AEO Auditor CLI

PageSpeed for AI agents. Scan any website and score its Agent/Engine Optimization (AEO) readiness across 5 dimensions — Discovery, Identity, Capabilities, Commerce, and Trust — then get a graded report with prioritized, actionable fixes.

Grades are relative: a site is ranked against a benchmark corpus (A = top tier of agent-readiness today), so the score stays a meaningful, movable target while agent-native standards are still emerging.

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Architecture Overview

graph TD
    CLI[CLI: aeo-audit] --> Engine[ScanEngine]
    Engine --> Config[ConfigLoader]
    Engine --> Crawler[Playwright Crawler]
    Engine --> Registry[CheckRegistry]
    Crawler --> Fetch[Fetch URL & Render DOM]
    Registry --> Run[Run 26 Audit Checks]
    Run --> Score[Scoring Pipeline]
    Score --> Reporter[ReporterFactory]
    Reporter --> Terminal[Rich Terminal]
    Reporter --> HTML[HTML Report]
    Reporter --> PDF[WeasyPrint PDF]
    Reporter --> JSON[JSON Metadata]

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Installation

1. System Dependencies (Required for WeasyPrint PDF)

PDF reports require external layout libraries installed on your OS:

• macOS (Homebrew):

  brew install pango cairo gdk-pixbuf upx
  

• Ubuntu/Debian:

  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get install -y libpango-1.0-0 libcairo2 libgdk-pixbuf-2.0-0 upx
  

2. Install Methods

Method A: Via pip / pipx (Recommended)

pipx install aeo-audit      # isolated CLI install (recommended)
# or:  pip install aeo-audit

# bleeding edge from main:
# pipx install git+https://github.com/AJ-EN/aeo-audit.git

That's it — on your first scan, aeo-audit downloads the headless Chromium it needs automatically (one-time, ~30s). To pre-install it yourself:

playwright install chromium

Method B: Standalone Binary Installer (No Python Needed)

Run the automated installation script:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AJ-EN/aeo-audit/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

[!IMPORTANT] The binary still needs a Chromium runtime. If a scan reports a missing browser, install one with playwright install chromium and point the binary at it: export PLAYWRIGHT_BROWSERS_PATH="$HOME/Library/Caches/ms-playwright" (macOS) or the equivalent cache path on your OS.

Method C: Source installation

git clone https://github.com/AJ-EN/aeo-audit.git
cd aeo-audit
pip install -e .
playwright install chromium

[!NOTE] If WeasyPrint throws rendering or font warnings on Python 3.14+, we recommend pinning pydyf==0.10.0.

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Quick Start

Scan a site and generate reports using the scan command:

# Terminal report (default)
aeo-audit scan https://api.example.com --format terminal

# Premium HTML report with embedded graphs
aeo-audit scan https://api.example.com --format html --output report.html

# Accessible PDF report
aeo-audit scan https://api.example.com --format pdf --output report.pdf

# Machine-readable JSON report
aeo-audit scan https://api.example.com --format json --output report.json

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Scoring & Grading

Each of the 26 checks returns a raw score (0.0–1.0). Checks roll up into 5 weighted category scores, which roll up into a single 0–100 overall score. The grade is then assigned by percentile rank against a benchmark corpus — so it reflects how a site compares to the field, not an absolute bar that nobody clears yet.

Category weights

aeo-audit is foundation-weighted: dimensions where well-run APIs already differ today (Trust, Capabilities, Discovery) carry the most weight, while emerging agent-native dimensions (Identity, parts of Commerce) contribute upside without dominating the score.

Category	Weight	What it measures
Discovery	0.25	robots/agent access, sitemap, .well-known, DNS, and MCP discovery.
Capabilities	0.25	Interface docs — OpenAPI, JSON Schema, GraphQL, async webhooks.
Trust	0.25	SLA/status page, structured errors, health checks, audit logs.
Commerce	0.15	Agent transactions — pricing, Stripe/crypto hints, usage metering.
Identity	0.10	Ownership & auth — DID docs, OAuth metadata, wallet hints.

Grade bands (percentile)

Grade	Percentile	Meaning
A	top 10%	Leading the field on agent-readiness.
B	top 30%	Strong; a few high-leverage gaps.
C	top 60%	Foundational signals present, frontier gaps.
D	top 85%	Minimal agent-readiness.
F	bottom 15%	Not addressed.

Weights, thresholds, and grade bands are all defined in config.yaml and overridable via a custom config. See docs/CONFIG_REFERENCE.md.

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CI/CD Pipeline Integration

You can easily configure aeo-audit as a compliance block (exits with code 2 if scores drop below requirements). Here's a brief example for GitHub Actions:

- name: AEO Compliance Gate
  run: aeo-audit scan https://preview.example.com --fail-on-grade B --format terminal

See docs/CI_RECIPES.md for GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, and Git hooks code snippets.

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Extending: Custom Check Plugins

To implement custom checking rules, subclass BaseCheck and expose it under the aeo_audit.checks entrypoint.

See docs/CUSTOM_CHECKS.md for a complete template walkthrough.

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FAQ

1. How do I install Playwright browser binaries?

If running the scanner for the first time, you may need to install Playwright's headless browser binaries:

playwright install chromium

2. Where is the SQLite cache stored?

By default, the SQLite cache database is created in your working directory as .aeo_cache.db to speed up consecutive audit scans. This can be customized or disabled using --no-cache.

3. Why are my PDF files empty or raising font errors?

Ensure you have installed the native pango and cairo system dependencies (see Step 1 of installation).