# Machine-readable booking action

> Machine-readable booking action: For a service business the agent's task is to book, not to browse. The fix: declare a bookable action.

- Source: /checks/booking-action
- Site: AgenticWebScore
- Language: English

---
For a service business the agent's task is to book, not to browse — a declared action is what turns a contact page into a completed job.

| Property | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Check id | `booking-action` |
| Dimension | Commerce Protocols (15%) |
| Tier | Recommended — pool 20 pts |
| Weight inside tier | 2 |
| Impact | Medium |
| Maturity | Draft — A published specification that is not yet ratified. |
| Conditional | No |
| Publishing skill | `booking-action` |
| Standards | schema.org/ReserveAction |

## What the scanner requests

- `/contact`
- `/book`
- `/appointment`

It also reads documents it has already fetched: `$home`.

## What is measured

This check declares no probe path, so the scanner walks the JSON-LD of the already fetched homepage `/` for a `potentialAction` whose `@type` is `ReserveAction` (schema.org) and inspects its `target`. Pass when the target is an `EntryPoint` carrying a `urlTemplate`, an RFC 6570 URI template with at least one variable for the agent to fill in such as `{date}` or `{service}`, so the booking can be completed by expanding a URL instead of scraping a contact page; partial when `ReserveAction` is present but `target` is a bare URL with no `urlTemplate`, or the template holds no variables and is therefore just a link; fail when no `ReserveAction` appears anywhere in the graph and the only booking path is a `ContactPoint`, a `tel:` link or a free-text form. This profile-scoped check is reported as not scored and excluded from the denominator unless the services profile has been positively identified.

## Reproduce it yourself

You do not have to take our word for any of this. Run the same measurement against your own domain:

```bash
DOMAIN="https://example.com"
curl -sL "$DOMAIN/" | perl -0777 -ne 'while (m{<script[^>]*application/ld\+json[^>]*>(.*?)</script>}gsi) { print "$1\n" }' | jq -r '.. | objects | select(([."@type"?] | flatten | any(. == "ReserveAction"))) | (.target // empty | if type=="array" then .[0] else . end) | if type=="object" then [(."@type" // "NO EntryPoint"), (.urlTemplate // "NO urlTemplate")] else ["target is a bare URL", tostring] end | @tsv'
```

## The fix

This is the artifact to ship. It is the complete change, not a description of one.

```html
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Service",
  "name": "Boiler service and safety check",
  "serviceType": "Boiler maintenance",
  "areaServed": { "@type": "City", "name": "Bristol" },
  "provider": { "@type": "LocalBusiness", "name": "Harbourside Heating", "telephone": "+44-117-496-0000" },
  "potentialAction": {
    "@type": "ReserveAction",
    "name": "Book a boiler service",
    "target": {
      "@type": "EntryPoint",
      "urlTemplate": "https://www.example.com/book?service={service}&date={date}&postcode={postcode}",
      "contentType": "text/html",
      "actionPlatform": ["https://schema.org/DesktopWebPlatform", "https://schema.org/MobileWebPlatform"],
      "httpMethod": "GET"
    },
    "result": { "@type": "Reservation", "name": "Boiler service appointment" }
  }
}
</script>
```

> A template is a promise: every variable needs a value space an agent can satisfy, and the expanded URL must return the booking form rather than a 404 or a JavaScript-only shell that only a browser can open.

## Standards referenced

- `schema.org/ReserveAction`

## Related checks

| Check | Tier | Impact | Same skill |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `product-schema` — Product/catalog schema | Essential | Critical | — |
| `payment-protocols` — Agent payment standard support (AP2/ACP/x402/UCP) | Recommended | High | — |
| `agent-purchase` — Agent purchase policy | Recommended | High | — |
| `ucp-manifest` — UCP manifest (/.well-known/ucp) | Emerging | Medium | — |
| `returns` — Return and shipping terms machine-readable | Recommended | Medium | — |
| `agent-analytics` — Agent traffic measurement | Emerging | Low | — |
| `inventory-freshness` — Inventory and price freshness | Recommended | High | — |
| `seller-identity` — Seller identity declared | Recommended | Medium | — |