/.well-known/agent.json returns HTML app shell instead of agent manifest JSON
/.well-known/agent.json is a standard web address where AI agents, automated programs built by Anthropic, OpenAI and others, check what a website will let them do. The address should return a manifest: a small structured document written in JSON, a plain-text data format computers can read. On your site, that address returns the same HTML page shown to a normal visitor instead, so any agent checking it sees a broken response rather than usable instructions. AI agent frameworks read this file automatically and silently skip any site where it fails to return valid JSON. As AI agents increasingly do research, comparisons and bookings on a user's behalf, a broken manifest means your business is invisible to that whole channel, even though nothing looks wrong to a human visitor browsing normally. Your developer needs about 30 minutes. The current setup routes every unmatched address through the site's catch-all page (common in single-page apps). Exclude /.well-known/agent.json from that catch-all and serve a real JSON file there instead, with the response header set to application/json, describing what the site lets agents do. Alternatively, remove the route so the address returns a plain 404 (page not found) instead of a misleading success response.
Why this matters
AI agent frameworks read this file automatically and silently skip any site where it fails to return valid JSON. As AI agents increasingly do research, comparisons and bookings on a user's behalf, a broken manifest means your business is invisible to that whole channel, even though nothing looks wrong to a human visitor browsing normally.
How to fix it
Your developer needs about 30 minutes. The current setup routes every unmatched address through the site's catch-all page (common in single-page apps). Exclude /.well-known/agent.json from that catch-all and serve a real JSON file there instead, with the response header set to application/json, describing what the site lets agents do. Alternatively, remove the route so the address returns a plain 404 (page not found) instead of a misleading success response.