Start with real user questions
Pull questions from support tickets, search queries, assistant conversations, onboarding calls, and common product tasks. Keep the original wording when you can. Users rarely describe a problem with the exact terms you use to describe your product, so it’s helpful to test their phrasing. Include several kinds of questions. Some types of questions and examples include:- Direct lookup: “What is the maximum request size?”
- Task-based: “How do I rotate an API key without downtime?”
- Troubleshooting: “Why does my webhook return 401?”
- Cross-page: “Which authentication method should I use for a browser app?”
- Unsupported: “Can I deploy this product on a game console?”
- Ambiguous: “How do I change the limit?”
Define what a good answer contains
For each question, write down:- The facts the answer must include
- The page or pages that support those facts
- Any important warning or prerequisite
- What the answer must not claim
- Whether the agent should answer, ask a follow-up question, or say the docs don’t cover it
Example evaluation case
Look beyond correct or incorrect
An answer can get the main fact right and still leave someone stuck. Check for:- Correctness: Are the claims accurate?
- Completeness: Does it include the steps, prerequisites, and risks needed to act?
- Grounding: Do the cited pages support the claims?
- Restraint: Does the agent avoid inventing an answer when the content is missing?
- Usefulness: Can the reader take the next step without guessing?
Run the same questions before and after changes
Before a major content or configuration change, save the current answers as a baseline. Run the same questions afterward and compare them. If an answer gets worse, trace the problem back to its source:- Did the agent find the right page?
- Did the page contain the answer in a focused section?
- Did titles, descriptions, or terminology make the page hard to match?
- Did outdated or duplicate content compete with the canonical source?
Keep the question set manageable
Start with 5-10 questions that cover the tasks your users care about most. Add questions if a you discover a new gap in your content and want to test for it. Remove questions that no longer reflect your product. Run the set after major releases, navigation or terminology changes, and updates tollms.txt or agent instructions. Keep reviewing a sample of live questions too. A fixed set helps you catch regressions, but it won’t tell you about every new need.
Next up: Protect private and sensitive information — Make sure agents only access the content they should.