How listings are researched and reviewed

Evidence standard

Material claims need a maintained first-party source

1. Prefer the closest source. Product documentation, protocol specifications, release notes, source repositories, licence files, and official pricing pages take priority over summaries and directories.
2. Match evidence to the claim. A homepage mention of “agents” does not support detailed claims about permissions, interfaces, deployment, pricing, or interoperability.
3. Separate fact from positioning. Vendor terminology may be reported with attribution, but it is not converted into an independent performance or quality judgment.
4. Use secondary sources only as context. Third-party coverage may help find a lead or explain a market, but it cannot replace first-party evidence for inclusion.

Experience and verification

Documentation review is not hands-on testing

Unless a listing explicitly describes a dated test and its conditions, it should be read as a review of public documentation, not evidence that the directory installed, purchased, benchmarked, or security-tested the tool. Superlatives and comparative claims require a disclosed method and supporting evidence; otherwise they are not editorial conclusions.

Review cadence

Review happens at submission and when material change is found

Every proposed listing is reviewed when it enters the directory. Existing entries are rechecked when a reader, vendor, contributor, or maintainer reports a material change or correction. The directory does not currently promise a fixed recurring re-review interval, so fast-changing facts such as price, availability, limits, and licence terms should be confirmed on the linked first-party source before a decision is made.

Conflicts, sponsorship, and affiliate links

Commercial relationships do not change the inclusion test

• Contributors should disclose employment, ownership, investment, or another material vendor relationship in the pull request.
• A maintainer relationship to a listed tool does not exempt the entry from evidence and classification requirements.
• The directory does not currently sell rankings or sponsored placement.
• Outbound listing links are not currently paid affiliate links. Any future compensated link or placement must be clearly labelled.
• Advertising or sponsorship, if introduced, will not guarantee acceptance and will not alter editorial classification.

Ordering

Position is not a score

Homepage listings are shuffled. Category and tool ordering can use an explicit maintenance value and otherwise falls back to readable label or name ordering. Placement does not represent quality, popularity, payment, market share, or editorial preference. Any future ranked recommendation will require a separate published methodology and will be labelled as a ranking.

Public record

Changes are proposed in public

Directory content is stored in a public GitHub repository. Proposed additions and material edits can be examined in pull requests, including the contributor identity and discussion available there. Public history is useful provenance, but submitter identity is not the same as editorial authorship or independent verification.

Corrections, appeals, and removals

Stronger evidence can change a decision

A reader or vendor may challenge a fact, classification, rejection, or removal with a specific first-party source. The maintainer may correct the wording, add a caveat, reclassify, temporarily unpublish, or remove an entry when evidence no longer supports it. A vendor request alone does not require publication or deletion of accurate public-interest information. The full process is documented in the corrections policy.

Content and data rights

No separate bulk-reuse licence has been declared

The repositories and live JSON/CSV exports are public for inspection, citation, and contribution, but their availability does not grant a separate open content or compiled-data licence for bulk republication. Link to the canonical page and attribute short quotations. Product names, logos, documentation, and other third-party materials remain subject to their owners' terms. Any future immutable research release will state explicit reuse terms next to that release.