Verify AI crawler policy after every deployment

Why the deployed response is the only thing that matters

A robots.txt file committed to a repository, a meta tag written in a template, or a header set in application code is an intent. What a crawler actually receives is the deployed response — and frameworks, static-site generators, hosting platforms, and CDNs can all sit between the two. A build step can generate a different robots.txt than the one in source control. A platform default can apply when no file is explicitly served. A CDN edge rule or cache can serve a stale or modified version of what origin actually returns. None of this is unusual or a bug in any single tool — it’s just several independent layers each capable of affecting the same output, which makes “check what I wrote” a different question from “check what’s actually live.”

Common technical failure modes

• A framework’s generateRobotsTxt-style helper (or equivalent) producing different output than expected for a given route or environment.
• A preview/staging deployment serving the same crawler policy as production, either too permissive or too restrictive for that environment’s intent.
• A CDN cache serving a previous version of robots.txt after a deploy, until the cache expires or is purged.
• A meta robots tag or header set at one layer (e.g. application code) being overridden or duplicated by another (e.g. a CMS plugin or CDN rule).
• A rule intended to target one crawler token inadvertently matching, or failing to match, a related token from the same operator (see the crawler directory for exact documented tokens).

Signals CrawlPact checks

CrawlPact fetches the actual public response for a domain — robots.txt, relevant meta directives, and header signals — the same way a real crawler would encounter them, and evaluates that against a versioned, source-cited crawler registry. It reports what it found, with the underlying evidence, and flags conflicts between different signal layers (e.g. robots.txt saying one thing, a meta tag saying another) as explicit findings.

Evidence and reproducibility

Every finding includes what was actually fetched, so a developer can reproduce the check independently (curl, a browser, or any other tool) rather than trusting a black-box conclusion. A manual re-scan (2–20 per domain per month, depending on plan) lets you recheck immediately after a deploy rather than waiting for the next scheduled monitoring cycle.

Monitoring

Once a domain is saved, automatic monitoring (Solo: monthly, Pro/Agency: weekly) rechecks it on a schedule and flags a change — including one caused by a platform update or CDN change with no corresponding commit. See Platform guides for what’s independently verifiable about how specific hosting platforms and CDNs handle these signals.

Current plan positioning

Solo (1 saved domain minimum via Free, 5 on Solo) typically fits an individual developer or a single project — monthly automatic monitoring, a private Atom feed for change alerts, and 5 manual re-scans per domain per month for post-deploy verification. Teams managing several projects or client sites usually fit Pro or Agency instead — see pricing for the full comparison.

What this does not include

CrawlPact does not deploy, edit, or roll back your robots.txt, meta tags, or headers on any platform — it audits and reports on the public response your stack actually produces; making a change remains a step you take in your own codebase, CMS, or hosting dashboard. CrawlPact also does not offer real-time or on-every-deploy monitoring on any plan today; the fastest current automatic cadence is weekly (Pro/Agency) or monthly (Solo) — a manual re-scan is the way to check immediately after a specific deploy.

Methodology

See Methodology for exactly what CrawlPact evaluates and how, and Scanner information for the technical detail behind the fetch/evaluation process itself.

Frequently asked questions

Does CrawlPact edit my production configuration for me? No. CrawlPact is not a deployment platform and does not modify your site’s configuration — it audits the public response and reports findings; applying a fix is a step you take in your own codebase/platform.

Does this replace testing my robots.txt before deploy? No — CrawlPact checks the live, deployed response, which complements (not replaces) checking a file locally before it ships. The value is specifically in catching what changes after deployment, at the platform/CDN layer, which local testing can’t see.

Does CrawlPact provide WAF-style enforcement or blocking? No. CrawlPact audits and reports on publicly declared policy signals; it does not enforce access control at the network or application layer.