AEO checks whether AI answer engines such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews can retrieve, read and quote a site's content, scores each item out of 100, and tells an editor what to fix and why it matters.

The distinguishing decision is that checks run against the entity as it is rendered for an anonymous visitor in the front-end theme, not against stored field values. That means the module sees what templates, single directory components, field formatters, view modes and paragraph structures actually produce, including text that never reaches the page at all, which is reported as a failure rather than passing quietly.

Checks are plugins carrying their own weight, category and a line naming the evidence they rest on. A check with no controlled research behind it says so in those words rather than being presented as fact.

No dependencies outside core. No API keys, no external services, no AI calls at runtime. Every check is deterministic and local, and nothing is sent anywhere.

Project link

https://www.drupal.org/project/aeo

Disclosure

This release was written with the help of an AI assistant.

Comments

balintpekker created an issue. See original summary.

vishal.kadam’s picture

Issue summary: View changes
avpaderno’s picture

Thank you for applying!

Before giving links helpful to understand how the review process works, what to expect from a review, and what to do to avoid a review takes more time than needed, I would like to thank all the reviewers for the work they do.
These applications are volunters-driven, which also means it is not possible to predict when an application will be marked fixed and the applicant will get the permission to opt projects into security advisory policy. While we aim to make an application as quick as possible, it is also important for us that more people review the project used for an application. In this way, we make sure applications do not miss some important points that should be instead reported.
Applications are not meant to be complete debugging sessions that eliminate every existing bug, though. I apologize if sometimes applications seem to go into too-detailed reviews.

Please read Review process for security advisory coverage: What to expect for more details and Security advisory coverage application checklist to understand what reviewers look for. Tips for ensuring a smooth review gives some hints for a smoother review.

The important notes are the following.

  • If you have not done it yet, you should enable GitLab CI for the project and fix the PHP_CodeSniffer errors/warnings it reports.
  • For the time this application is open, only your commits are allowed.
  • The purpose of this application is giving you a new drupal.org role that allows you to opt projects into security advisory coverage, either projects you already created, or projects you will create. The project status will not be changed by this application; once this application is closed, you will be able to change the project status from Not covered to Opt into security advisory coverage. This is possible only 14 days after the project is created.

    Keep in mind that once the project is opted into security advisory coverage, only Security Team members may change coverage.
  • Only the person who created the application will get the permission to opt projects into security advisory coverage. No other person will get the same permission from the same application; that applies also to co-maintainers/maintainers of the project used for the application.
  • We only accept an application per user. If you change your mind about the project to use for this application, or it is necessary to use a different project for the application, please update the issue summary with the link to the correct project and the issue title with the project name and the branch to review.

To the reviewers

Please read How to review security advisory coverage applications, Application workflow, What to cover in an application review, and Tools to use for reviews.

The important notes are the following.

  • It is preferable to wait for a project moderator before posting the first comment on newly created applications. Project moderators will do some preliminary checks that are necessary before any change on the project files is suggested.
  • Reviewers should show the output of a CLI tool only once per application.
  • It may be best to have the applicant fix things before further review.

For new reviewers, I would also suggest to first read In which way the issue queue for coverage applications is different from other project queues.

avpaderno’s picture

Remember to change status, when the project is ready to be reviewed. In this queue, projects are only reviewed when the status is Needs review.

balintpekker’s picture

Status: Active » Needs review

Added the missing .gitlab-ci.yml and ran a pipeline, which passes on all jobs
(phpcs, phpstan, phpunit, eslint, stylelint, cspell, composer-lint):
https://git.drupalcode.org/project/aeo/-/pipelines/973233

Also adding for context, how the module differs from similar projects:

  1. /llms.txt (https://www.drupal.org/project/llms_txt) publishes a manifest telling models what is on a site. It answers "what should a model read?"; this module answers "is any of it usable once read?" Complementary, no overlap in code.
  2. Schema.org Metatag (https://www.drupal.org/project/schema_metatag) generates structured data. AEO reports on structured data found in the rendered output but generates none.
  3. SEO Checklist (https://www.drupal.org/project/seo_checklist) is a manual task list. AEO audits live rendered content automatically.
  4. Answer Engine Optimizer (https://www.drupal.org/project/aeo_optimizer) is closest in intent. It analyzes stored field values; this module analyzes the rendered page as an anonymous visitor receives it, and will not write to content on the user's behalf.

For context, since a reviewer might be looking at both aeo_optimizer and aeo may notice the resemblance: AEO was created in October 2025 and that project in February 2026, and several files in it correspond to AEO's code as it was before the current rewrite. The branch under review shares no code with this module, and it has been rewritten from field inspection to render analysis.

vishal.kadam’s picture

Status: Needs review » Needs work

1. FILE: aeo.libraries.yml

version: VERSION

VERSION is only used by Drupal core modules. Contributed modules should use a literal string that does not change with the Drupal core version a site is using.

2. FILE: aeo.module

For a new module that aims to be compatible with Drupal 10 and Drupal 11, I would rather implement hooks as class methods as described in Support for object oriented hook implementations using autowired services.

3. FILE: src/Form/SettingsForm.php

With Drupal 10 and Drupal 11, there is no longer need to use #default_value for each form element, when the parent class is ConfigFormBase: It is sufficient to use #config_target, as in the following code.

    $form['image_toolkit'] = [
      '#type' => 'radios',
      '#title' => $this->t('Select an image processing toolkit'),
      '#config_target' => 'system.image:toolkit',
      '#options' => [],
    ];

Using that code, it is no longer needed to save the configuration values in the form submission handler: The parent class will take care of that.

balintpekker’s picture

Status: Needs work » Needs review

Thanks for the review, all three are now addressed in 1.0.x. (https://git.drupalcode.org/project/aeo/-/commit/d1df3ff43e42c7b63c38e356...)

  1. aeo.libraries.yml - both libraries now use a literal version string.
  2. aeo.module - every hook has moved into a class under src/Hook. Since the module supports 10.3, I followed the linked backwards compatible example from the change record, registering classes in aeo.services.yml with autowiring, and keeping the legacy hook shims in the module file.
  3. src/Form/SettingsForm.php - All elements where I could use #config_target are now using that, but I had to use the submitForm for the content type checkboxes. If there is a better way to handle that, I'm glad to change it.

The pipeline is still green on all jobs, and the tests are passing.

balintpekker’s picture

Priority: Normal » Major

Changing priority as per Issue priorities.