Seventeen protocols now claim a place in your agent readiness roadmap, and adopting all of them would be a mistake for every site type we scan. The right list depends on what your site is: a blog needs three moves, an API business needs five different ones, and a local service site needs almost none of it.

This is the decision matrix. Find your row, do the Adopt column, calendar the Watch column, and ignore the rest with a clear conscience. Background on every protocol lives in the full stack guide.

Verdicts current as of July 12, 2026.

The matrix

Protocol	Blog / content	Docs / SaaS	E-commerce	API / data	Local business
schema.org	Adopt	Adopt	Adopt	Adopt	Adopt
Markdown negotiation	Adopt	Adopt	Adopt	Adopt	Watch
robots.txt AI rules	Adopt	Adopt	Adopt	Adopt	Adopt
llms.txt	Cheap extra	Adopt	Skip	Cheap extra	Skip
RSL licensing	Watch	Skip	Skip	Watch	Skip
MCP server + card	Skip	Adopt	Watch	Adopt	Skip
A2A agent card	Skip	Watch	Skip	Watch	Skip
Agent Skills	Skip	Adopt	Watch	Adopt	Skip
WebMCP	Skip	Watch	Watch	Skip	Skip
NLWeb	Skip	Skip	Watch	Watch	Skip
UCP	Skip	Skip	Adopt	Skip	Skip
ACP	Skip	Skip	Consider	Skip	Skip
x402	Watch	Watch	Skip	Pilot	Skip

Web Bot Auth is missing from the table on purpose: agent identity verification happens at your CDN or host, so there is nothing for a site owner to install yet.

Count the Adopt cells and the shape is clear: API and data businesses have the longest list, local businesses the shortest.

Blog or content site: three moves

Your visitors increasingly include agents reading on a budget. Adopt schema.org (Article, FAQ, Person markup), markdown negotiation, and explicit AI rules in robots.txt so crawlers know your terms.

Watch RSL if your archive has licensing value; the Reddit and Yahoo-backed standard is how smaller publishers will express pay-for-training terms. And keep expectations for llms.txt where the data puts them: cheap, and still unproven for citations even after the August 2026 v2 revision. If you do publish one, v2 wants its links pointing at the markdown versions of your pages, so ship markdown negotiation first and the index second.

Skip the interaction and commerce layers entirely. An agent does not need to operate a blog; it needs to read and cite it.

Docs site or SaaS product: the interaction stack pays here

Everything from the blog row applies, and then the real work starts. Adopt an MCP server with a server card, plus Agent Skills that teach agents your product. This is the row where the partner-directory names live, and where agent traffic converts into product usage.

This is also the one row where llms.txt moves from cheap extra to adopt. Coding agents fetching documentation are the use case it demonstrably serves, which is why OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google each publish one for their own developer docs. Note that v2 lets the file cover a subpath, so /docs/llms.txt indexes your documentation without you touching the site root.

Watch WebMCP if your product has browser-heavy flows, and an A2A card if you expose an agent of your own. NLWeb is a skip: your MCP server already gives agents programmatic access.

E-commerce: commerce protocols first

Adopt schema.org Product markup, markdown negotiation, robots rules, and UCP, which is on by default if you run Shopify. Then run the ACP math from our UCP vs ACP comparison: add it when ChatGPT referrals and margins justify 7.2%.

Watch WebMCP, since shopping flows are its strongest use case once it leaves origin trial, and NLWeb for live-inventory search. Skip x402; your products are not priced per request.

API or data business: the longest list

You are the site type agents pay. Adopt schema.org, markdown negotiation, robots rules, an MCP server with card, and Agent Skills. Then pilot x402: per-request stablecoin payments fit usage-priced products, and AWS CloudFront made pilots cheap in July.

Watch A2A cards if you ship agents, and RSL if your data has licensing value beyond per-call access.

Local business: keep it small

Adopt schema.org LocalBusiness markup and clean robots rules. That is genuinely most of it. Your customers' agents need your hours, services, and booking link, all of which schema carries.

Watch markdown negotiation; it helps if your site has substantial content. Skip the rest until your booking platform adopts agent protocols for you, which is how this layer will most likely reach local businesses anyway.

How to use this without overbuilding

Two rules keep the matrix honest. First, finish your Adopt column before touching your Watch column; every row's Adopt items are cheap, proven, or both, and the Watch items are neither yet. Second, re-check quarterly: this stack is a year old, and a Watch can become an Adopt in one release, the way UCP did for Shopify merchants in February.

GenReady's scan covers the checkable protocols in this matrix and tells you which cells you already pass. And if you want the fastest route through your Adopt column, our afternoon checklist publishes as this series' closing piece.

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Find your gaps in under 60 seconds: run a free GenReady scan and see which of your Adopt column is already done.