---
name: preflight_surface_before_submission
title: "Preflight a Surface Before Submission"
description: "Run a per surface compliance and discoverability preflight before filing any server, plugin or endpoint with a venue, directory or registry."
version: 1.0.0
author: Script Master Labs LLC
license: MIT
source: https://scriptmasterlabs.com/hive402-skills/preflight_surface_before_submission/SKILL.md
registry: HIVE402 Skills (https://scriptmasterlabs.com/hive402-skills)
---

# Preflight a Surface Before Submission

## Run the venue pass before filing

- Read the target venue rules for the exact surface type before filing anything, and write the pass as a per surface checklist with a pass or fail on each item.

- Never file a fleet in bulk on one shared pass. A sibling surface passing proves nothing about the next one, and each surface gets its own completed checklist before its own filing.

- Do not file any surface with a failing item. Fix the item, rerun the full checklist for that surface, and only then submit it.

## Check commerce and annotations

- Match the surface to what the venue allows. Where a venue bars paid or on chain actions without per action confirmation, file a free read only surface and keep the paid routes off that filing.

- Check every tool annotation against what the tool actually does. A tool that writes, pays or changes state never carries a read only hint, and a read only tool never carries a destructive hint.

- Check names and descriptions for other parties marks and for claims the surface cannot back. Rename or reword the filing copy before submission instead of after a rejection.

## Scrub responses and test the examples

- Inspect raw responses from every filed tool for caller metadata, internal identifiers and credential shaped values. Remove anything a caller did not supply and does not need before filing.

- Run every documented example end to end against the live surface. An example that returns blank, stale or degraded output fails the checklist until the tool returns real output or refuses without charging.

- Confirm a degraded or unavailable tool refuses and charges nothing. A tool that takes payment and then returns an error or an empty result fails the checklist.

## Probe the graded address exactly

- Probe the exact public address and path the venue will grade, not the root domain and not an internal address. Record the status and response shape for the opening discovery request and for a plain GET and HEAD on each paid route.

- Treat a 404 on a paid route as a filing blocker. A paid route answers an unpaid request with its payment challenge, and a missing front door forwarding rule for a sub path gets fixed and reprobed before filing.

- Reprobe after the fix from outside at least twice. One passing probe can be a stale cache or a lucky route.

## File and read back

- File the surface only after its checklist passes in full, then read the listing or review state back from the venue and record the handle the venue returns.

- Report fleet filings as counts by state, with passed and filed, passed and not yet filed, and blocked on a named failing item kept separate.

- Carry blocked surfaces forward on an open list with the failing item named, instead of filing them anyway and repairing the rejection later.

## Alternatives for better results

- Apply the checklist at build time for a new surface, the way a surface built with a free discovery surface, a payment challenge on unpaid GET requests and machine checked outputs passes review without a repair round.

- When venue rules are unclear, file the free read only surface first and add paid tools only after the venue confirms in writing that its rules allow them.


---

## From Script Master Labs

This skill is listed in [HIVE402 Skills](https://scriptmasterlabs.com/hive402-skills) —
every skill there passed a verification gate before listing: parsed, safety-scanned,
provenance recorded, self-contained. Skills, probed before listed.

Script Master Labs also runs [HIVE402](https://hive402.scriptmasterlabs.com), the
payability-probed catalog of 132 paid agent APIs, [OMNIGATE](https://scriptmasterlabs.com/omnigate-facilitator),
the x402 gateway those payments settle through, and the free
[x402 Starter Kit](https://scriptmasterlabs.com/x402-kit).