Joost de Valk publishes open Website Specification: 128 rules for modern, future-proof websites
By
Luis Rijo
18h ago· 13 min readenNews
100/100
Golden Brown
Bagelometer↗
An everything bagel for the brain. Substantive, layered, well-seasoned.
Score100TypenewsSentimentpositive
Summary
Joost de Valk, creator of Yoast SEO, published the Website Specification (specification.website) — an open, platform-agnostic reference document consolidating 128 technical standards across 10 categories for building modern websites. Each topic is assigned a status: required, recommended, optional, or avoid. The spec covers areas from HTML doctype and security headers to AI agent readiness, MCP servers, and Core Web Vitals. De Valk created it to solve the recurring problem of having to point people to multiple different resources when advising on website best practices.
Key quotes
· 3 pulledThe problem I kept running into was having to point at different resources every time someone asked about website best practices.
The spec covers 128 topics across 10 categories, with each entry assigned one of four statuses: required, recommended, optional, or avoid.
It's a platform-agnostic reference document that consolidates technical standards for building a modern website into a single, openly licensed resource.
The Website Specification: 128 topics across 10 areas - from HTML doctype to AI agent readiness, MCP servers, security headers, and Core Web Vitals checks.
