Measured 2026-09-16 · public surface only
An assistant stops at: read the catalog → get past robots.txt → buy without a human → pay as a machine
Verdict: early — 8 failing checks out of 13 we run.
| Gate | Result | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| discover it | passes | present, 6769 bytes |
| read the catalog | an agent stops here | no commerce schema on homepage (found: FAQPage, Question, Answer, Organization) |
| get past robots.txt | also fails | blocks 1/12 named AI agents outright: meta-externalagent |
| find a machine price | passes | found at https://coursera.org/api/pricing |
| buy without a human | also fails | no explicit self-serve gate found (verify manually) |
| pay as a machine | also fails | /api returned HTTP 404, no 402 challenge |
| Failing check | What we measured | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| llms-full.txt (bulk docs for models) | missing (HTTP 404) | Publish `llms-full.txt` with the full documentation inlined for large-context models. |
| AI agents allowed by robots.txt | blocks 1/12 named AI agents outright: meta-externalagent | Allow named AI agents explicitly in `robots.txt`. |
| Commerce paths open to a plain agent | disallowed for User-agent: * → /account, /api | Stop disallowing the commerce paths a plain agent must reach. |
| schema.org product/offer markup | no commerce schema on homepage (found: FAQPage, Question, Answer, Organization) | Add schema.org `Product`/`Offer`/`SoftwareApplication` markup so prices are data, not prose. |
| Agent payment protocol referenced | x402 / ACP / MPP / AP2 never mentioned | Document the payment protocols you accept (x402, ACP, MPP, AP2). |
| Purchase possible with no human signup | no explicit self-serve gate found (verify manually) | Add a paid path that needs no account — an HTTP 402 challenge the agent can settle. |
| Machine-native payment challenge (HTTP 402) | /api returned HTTP 404, no 402 challenge | Return HTTP 402 with a payment challenge instead of a signup wall — this is the one nobody has. |
We audited 206 companies the way an assistant reads them. None can accept payment from a machine, and this one is no exception: the documentation checks are widely passed, the payment checks are almost universally failed. Discovery earns nothing on its own — the money is in the last gate.
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llms.txt, robots.txt, sitemap.xml, schema.org markup, /.well-known/*, the pricing page, and an HTTP 402 probe.node audit.js coursera.org.