Methodology

Version 0.1 (beta).

1. Unpaid probe. One request per route, with no payment header and User-Agent BotsRated-probe/0.1. GET is tried first; POST {} is used if GET gives 400/404/405/415. We record the UTC time, status, latency, whether the 402 parses as a valid x402 challenge with an accepts list, the quoted amount and payTo compared with the Bazaar listing, header byte counts, and SHA-256 hashes of the request and response.
2. Paid test-buy (running since 2026-10-23). Bought through the Coinbase x402 connector from a capped Coinbase USDC balance (max $1.50 per buy, $2 per day, $20 per month). For each buy we record the endpoint, quoted and charged amounts, the Base tx hash, the time, and whether the response was delivered, non-empty, schema-valid and correct-looking against an independent check. Failed or doubtful buys are re-tested and held privately; the seller gets 72 hours' notice before any failing result is published. We pay the quoted price from a capped wallet and record the on-chain tx hash, the amount charged compared with the amount quoted, whether anything was delivered, whether the response matches the declared schema, and correctness against independent sources. A monthly negative test sends invalid input to check whether we are charged when a call fails.
3. Index. No composite index is shown until a host has at least 3 paid buys on at least 3 different days. Until then the label reads "probe-only".
4. Facts only. Every number links to its receipts. We do not label sellers as good, bad, scams or fraud. Some price differences are legitimate, for example input-dependent pricing.
5. Integrity. Each dataset is signed with ed25519. Key: /.well-known/botsrated-key.