seo-readiness

File existence is the easy 10%. The failures that cost launches are contradictions: canonical says localhost, sitemap advertises /admin, a noindex left over from staging, robots blocking the pages the sitemap lists. This skill reads the relationships.

Activate when

• The product has public pages meant to be found, or launch/domain/redesign is near.
• Titles look like "Vite + React", canonicals or sitemap hosts look wrong, or the site has never been indexed.
• Not for a private/internal product (confirm it is consistently noindex), not for ranking strategy or keyword research.

Inspect

1. Intent. Should this site be indexed? Production origin (scheme, host, www)? Public vs private routes? Ask only if .readyvibe/context.md and config do not say (site-reconnaissance).

2. Run the sweep (paths relative to this skill's folder; add --render for client-rendered apps; serve a build locally if needed):

   node scripts/inspect-metadata.mjs --url <site> --render --private-path /dashboard
   node scripts/check-links.mjs      --url <site> --render     # sitemap/canonical target status

   Read rendered HTML: frameworks can override tags after hydration. Compare with source (<Head>, metadata exports, next-seo, react-helmet, index.html) to find where each value comes from, so fixes land in the right place.

3. Relationships to reason about:

   Signal A	vs. Signal B	Problem
   canonical host	production origin	localhost/staging/preview host in a canonical (HIGH)
   sitemap <loc> host	canonical host	search engines get two truths
   sitemap lists path	page is noindex or private route	contradictory signals; private exposure (HIGH for admin/dashboard/api)
   sitemap lists path	robots blocks it	unfetchable listing
   sitemap lists path	canonical points elsewhere	non-canonical URL listed
   sitemap lists path	returns 404/redirect/soft-404	dead listing (check-links)
   robots Sitemap:	actual sitemap URL/host	wrong or dev sitemap advertised
   robots Disallow: /	production intent	whole site blocked (HIGH)
   robots Disallow: /_next/ /assets/	rendering	crawlers cannot render
   robots lists /admin	route reachable?	robots is not access control; hands attackers a map
   noindex on home/most pages	launch intent	staging leftover (HIGH)
   x-robots-tag header	meta robots	header may override; check both
   several pages	the same canonical URL (CANONICAL_DUPLICATE_TARGET)	template copied from the home page; tells engines to ignore the rest
   robots blocks a linked public page (ROBOTS_BLOCKS_PAGE)	page's title, description, and noindex are never read	crawler cannot see it
   trailing slash / www / http variants	canonical + redirects	duplicate URL forms

4. Titles and descriptions: unique per page, specific to the page's content, front-load the topic, roughly 50-60 / 120-160 characters as a guideline (truncation, not a rule); no framework defaults; no keyword stuffing. Derive copy from the page's visible content and product facts; do not invent claims.
5. Multi-language: hreflang pairs, per-language canonicals (with multilingual-readiness).
6. JS-only pages: if content appears only after JavaScript and no server rendering or prerender exists, say indexing depends on the crawler executing JS: SOURCE-INDICATED risk, not proven.

Evidence that counts

Label each claim OBSERVED, SOURCE-INDICATED, DECLARED, INFERRED, UNKNOWN, or REVIEW REQUIRED. UNKNOWN is never a pass and never a failure.

• Rendered tag from the running site: OBSERVED. Tag in source only: SOURCE-INDICATED.
• Local checks cannot show what the production CDN redirects, rewrites, or serves. Verify the live URL when one exists; otherwise mark host/redirect behavior UNKNOWN.
• Never state a page "is indexed", "will rank", or "Google will show X"; that needs Search Console (search-console-readiness).

May change

Set/repair titles, descriptions, canonicals (only once the production origin is known: DECLARED or asked), robots.txt, sitemap.xml or its generator (next-sitemap, app/sitemap.ts, @astrojs/sitemap), noindex on genuinely private routes, removal of private routes from the sitemap, redirects for duplicate URL forms. Preserve intentional owner copy; improve only starter, missing, duplicate, or placeholder values.

Must not claim

"SEO-optimized", "will be indexed", "will rank", "Google-friendly" or a numeric score. Do not claim a sitemap is correct because it exists; correctness is the agreement list above.

Verify

Re-run inspect-metadata and check-links. Pass = no HIGH; every sitemap URL is public, canonical, 200, not noindex, not blocked; every canonical target resolves and is on the production host; no localhost/staging strings remain; robots and sitemap agree. Then spot-check one page in the rendered DOM.

Escalate

Unknown production origin (ask before writing absolute URLs); a private route that is reachable (hand to web-security); site migrations with redirects; sites with several domains or heavy JS rendering where search visibility matters (deep technical SEO is beyond this pass).

No change is valid when

The site is intentionally private and consistently noindex; a one-page site has no sitemap by design; an apparent finding is explained by context (noindex on /dashboard). Do not generate a sitemap or rewrite good copy to hit a length target.