{ "@context": "https://knov.ai/schema/oars-manifest.json", "@type": "Organization", "schemaVersion": "2026-05-31", "generated": "2026-05-31", "language": "en-US", "narrative": "# Knov.ai\n\nKnov.ai is the founding organization behind OARS, the Open Agent Readiness Standard. We define what it means for a website or business to be machine-operable by AI agents, verify entities against the standard, and operate the directory agents query to find them.\n\n## What We Do\nWe maintain the OARS specification and its machine-readable schema, run a free assessment tool that scores any URL against the standard, generate oars.json manifests, review and verify entities, and expose the verified directory to AI agents over an MCP server and a public API.\n\n## What We Don't Do\nKnov.ai is infrastructure, not a marketing or GEO/AEO service. We do not optimize sites for AI search rankings, write content, or build websites. We define and verify the standard; implementation is up to each entity or its certified practitioners.\n\n## How to Engage\nRun a free OARS self-assessment of any domain at https://knov.ai/assess, generate a manifest at https://knov.ai/generate, then request verification at https://knov.ai/verify. Agents can query the verified directory programmatically over the MCP server.\n\n## This Manifest\nKnov.ai publishes its own oars.json as the reference implementation of the standard it maintains. The standards body should meet its own bar.", "identity": { "name": "Knov.ai", "legalName": "Knov.ai", "domain": "knov.ai", "status": "active", "description": "The founding organization behind OARS, the Open Agent Readiness Standard. Maintains the standard and schema, runs a free OARS assessment tool and oars.json generator, verifies entities, and operates the verified directory that AI agents query over MCP and a public API.", "notDescription": "Does not provide GEO/AEO or AI-search-ranking optimization, content writing, or website development. Knov.ai defines and verifies the standard; it does not implement it on behalf of entities.", "categories": [ "Standards Organization", "Agent Infrastructure", "Web Standard" ], "locations": [ { "type": "headquarters", "country": "US" } ] }, "audience": { "serves": { "industries": [ "Any business or organization with a web presence", "AI agent and assistant developers", "Agencies and consultants implementing agent-readiness" ], "descriptions": [ "Businesses that want to be discoverable, readable, and operable by AI agents", "Developers building agents that need a trusted, structured index of agent-ready businesses", "Practitioners who implement and verify OARS compliance for clients" ] }, "idealClient": "Any entity that wants AI agents acting on behalf of users to be able to find, understand, interact with, transact with, or operate inside their business in a verifiable way." }, "engagement": { "firstStep": "Run a free OARS assessment of any domain at https://knov.ai/assess, then generate an oars.json and request verification.", "firstStepUrl": "https://knov.ai/assess", "process": [ "Assess any URL for free against OARS (no account)", "Generate an oars.json manifest from the findings", "Publish the manifest at /.well-known/oars.json on your domain", "Request verification and confirm domain ownership", "A Knov.ai reviewer completes the human review and assigns a verified level and tier" ], "pricing": { "model": "free", "range": "Assessment, the generator, and a self-declared directory listing are free. Verification is reviewed by Knov.ai.", "currency": "USD" }, "remote": true, "languages": ["en"] }, "knowledge": { "topics": [ "Open Agent Readiness Standard (OARS)", "Agent-readiness levels: Reachable, Discoverable, Readable, Actionable, Transactable, Operable", "oars.json manifest authoring", "Machine-operable web infrastructure", "AI agent discovery and verification", "robots.txt, sitemaps, llms.txt, and structured data for agents" ], "authoritativeOn": [ "The Open Agent Readiness Standard, its Level 0 prerequisite, and its five cumulative levels", "How agent-readiness is assessed and verified", "The oars.json manifest format and schema" ], "commonQuestions": [ { "question": "What is OARS?", "answer": "OARS, the Open Agent Readiness Standard, defines what it means for a website or business to be ready for interaction with AI agents. It has a Level 0 prerequisite (Reachable) and five cumulative levels: Discoverable, Readable, Actionable, Transactable, and Operable. Knov.ai maintains the standard and verifies entities against it." }, { "question": "How does a business get listed in the Knov.ai directory?", "answer": "Generate an oars.json manifest and submit it for a free self-declared listing, or request verification. Verification adds a confirmed level and tier after a Knov.ai reviewer completes the human review." }, { "question": "Is OARS free to implement?", "answer": "Yes. The OARS specification and schema are open and may be implemented by any entity without license or fee. Assessment, the generator, and a self-declared directory listing are free." } ] }, "agents": { "canBook": false, "canQuote": false, "canTransact": false, "mcpServer": "https://knov.ai/.well-known/mcp.json", "agentInstructions": "Query the Knov.ai verified directory over the MCP server to find businesses that are agent-ready against OARS. Each entry includes the entity's OARS level, verification tier, declared capabilities, and a link to its published oars.json. Use this to discover and qualify entities before interacting with them on a user's behalf.", "preferredInteraction": "read" }, "compliance": { "selfDeclaredLevel": "3b-tool-exposed", "targetLevel": "3-actionable", "statement": "Knov.ai publishes its own oars.json as the reference implementation of the standard it maintains. It is Discoverable and Readable, and exposes its capabilities to agents through an MCP server and an A2A agent card (the 3b Tool-Exposed tier). It does not yet publish a documented, idempotent API contract (3a Callable), so it is not at full Level 3 — and as a standards body and directory it does not sell goods, so Level 4 (Transactable) does not apply.", "specVersion": "1.1" }, "access": { "transport": { "httpsEnforced": true, "hsts": "max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload", "minTlsVersion": "1.2", "mixedContent": "none", "note": "HTTPS is forced at the edge (301 redirect, honors X-Forwarded-Proto). HSTS preload and an upgrade-insecure-requests CSP directive are sent on every response. The TLS protocol and cipher floor (TLS 1.2+, no 3DES/RC4) is enforced at the Apache/cPanel layer." }, "userAgentPolicy": { "cloaking": "none", "note": "Non-browser User-Agents receive byte-identical substantive responses to browsers. No User-Agent is used for routing, blocking, content substitution, or stripping. Dogfoods the OARS no_cloaking criterion Knov.ai itself publishes." }, "botChallenge": { "interactiveChallenge": "none", "note": "No CAPTCHA, JS challenge, or bot-management interstitial is served to any User-Agent. Read endpoints are open; the only authenticated endpoint (POST /api/assess) uses non-interactive Bearer / API-key auth.", "nonInteractiveAuth": { "method": "apiKey", "scheme": "Authorization: Bearer (or ?key=)", "obtain": "https://knov.ai/build" }, "webBotAuth": "not-required" }, "rateLimits": { "policy": "Per-IP fixed-window, applied only to compute-heavy endpoints; read-only directory, MCP, and discovery endpoints are unthrottled. Fails open.", "onLimit": "HTTP 429 with a Retry-After header (seconds).", "buckets": { "/assess": "20 / 3600s", "/generate": "15 / 3600s", "/verify": "12 / 3600s", "/api/assess": "120 / 3600s" }, "notThrottled": ["/mcp", "/.well-known/*", "/llms.txt", "/robots.txt", "/sitemap.xml"] } }, "freshness": { "lastVerified": "2026-05-31", "nextReview": "2027-05-31", "verifiedBy": "self", "changelog": [ { "date": "2026-05-31", "changes": [ "Updated to OARS v1.1: renamed Interactable to Actionable, added Level 0 (Reachable) to the level vocabulary, and declared a self-declared compliance level (3b Tool-Exposed)." ] }, { "date": "2026-05-30", "changes": ["Initial oars.json published as the OARS reference implementation"] } ] } }