# NLWeb endpoint

Microsoft's conversational /ask route returning schema.org answers.

**[Capabilities](/docs/capabilities)** · checked once per host (item type `nlweb`) · 4 checks that can fail it

It lets an agent ask the site a question in natural language and get structured data back, instead of crawling for it. Cite the repo-hosted spec: the published nlweb.ai certificate expired 2026-08-04, so the canonical URL is unfetchable.

## Adoption

**Early pilots** (L1)

Named early adopters exist, behind flags or trials. Nothing has been independently measured yet. Direction of travel: ► flat, as of 2026-07-28.

The May 2025 launch-partner list is still the whole story, and the reference repository has never shipped a tagged release.

| Adopter | Depth | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Tripadvisor (internal frontend, not a public /ask endpoint) | production | [techcommunity.microsoft.com](https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/azure-ai-foundry-blog/nlweb-pioneer-qa-tripadvisor/4415289) |
| O'Reilly Media | production | [oreilly.com](https://www.oreilly.com/pub/pr/3471) |
| Shopify, Snowflake, Eventbrite, Hearst | announced | [github.com](https://github.com/nlweb-ai/NLWeb) |

## What we check

Absence is never a finding: every check below runs only once `nlWebPresent` is true, so a site that has not
adopted this is not assessed on it and appears in no report.

| Check | Kind | Raises | On whose authority |
|---|---|---|---|
| `nlWebRestErrorResponse` | high severity | usability | Lumar readiness profile |
| `nlWebRestMalformedResponse` | high severity | usability | Microsoft NLWeb profile |
| `nlWebMcpAskToolMissingDescription` | high severity | usability | Microsoft NLWeb profile |
| `nlWebMcpAskToolMissingInputSchema` | high severity | usability | Microsoft NLWeb profile |
| `nlWebRestMissingSchemaOrg` | informational | nothing | Microsoft NLWeb profile |

## Specifications

| Document | Revision | Kind |
|---|---|---|
| [NLWeb specification (repo-hosted source; cite this one)](https://github.com/nlweb-ai/website/blob/main/NLWEBSPEC.md) | v0.55 | specification |
| [NLWeb REST API (/ask, /mcp)](https://github.com/nlweb-ai/NLWeb/blob/main/docs/nlweb-rest-api.md) | living document | specification |
| [NLWeb project](https://github.com/nlweb-ai/NLWeb) | living document | guidance |

Last re-read against the published documents: 2026-08-12.

**On pinning it.** Cite the repository-hosted spec source, not `nlweb.ai/docs/specification`: that site's TLS certificate expired 2026-08-04, so the published URL is unfetchable. v0.55 was re-verified from the repository, whose change log ends there.