diff --git a/tests/api/test_seo_metadata.py b/tests/api/test_seo_metadata.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..93f8664
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/api/test_seo_metadata.py
@@ -0,0 +1,56 @@
+"""
+SEO metadata checks — canonical link and Open Graph/Twitter Card tags.
+
+Pending coverage for CivicDataLab/ParakhAI-frontend#444, which adds these tags
+to `app/layout.tsx`. Gated with `pending_pr` so it only runs once that PR
+merges (see conftest.py's `_pending_pr_state`).
+"""
+
+import re
+
+import pytest
+import requests
+
+from utils.config import Config
+
+pytestmark = [pytest.mark.api, pytest.mark.pending_pr("ParakhAI-frontend#444")]
+
+BASE = Config.BASE_URL.rstrip("/")
+
+
+class TestSEOMetadata:
+    def test_homepage_has_canonical_link(self, api_client: requests.Session):
+        """The homepage must declare a canonical <link> tag (PR #444)."""
+        resp = api_client.get(BASE + "/", allow_redirects=True, timeout=15)
+        assert resp.status_code == 200, (
+            f"Homepage returned {resp.status_code}, expected 200"
+        )
+        match = re.search(r'<link[^>]+rel=["\']canonical["\'][^>]*>', resp.text, re.I)
+        assert match, "No <link rel=\"canonical\"> tag found on the homepage"
+        href_match = re.search(r'href=["\']([^"\']+)["\']', match.group(0), re.I)
+        assert href_match, f"canonical tag has no href: {match.group(0)}"
+        assert href_match.group(1).startswith("http"), (
+            f"canonical href is not an absolute URL: {href_match.group(1)}"
+        )
+
+    def test_homepage_has_open_graph_tags(self, api_client: requests.Session):
+        """The homepage must declare og:title, og:description and og:url (PR #444)."""
+        resp = api_client.get(BASE + "/", allow_redirects=True, timeout=15)
+        html = resp.text
+        required_og_props = ["og:title", "og:description", "og:url"]
+        missing = [
+            prop
+            for prop in required_og_props
+            if not re.search(
+                rf'<meta[^>]+property=["\']{re.escape(prop)}["\']', html, re.I
+            )
+        ]
+        assert not missing, f"Missing Open Graph meta tags: {missing}"
+
+    def test_homepage_has_twitter_card_tag(self, api_client: requests.Session):
+        """The homepage must declare a twitter:card meta tag (PR #444)."""
+        resp = api_client.get(BASE + "/", allow_redirects=True, timeout=15)
+        match = re.search(
+            r'<meta[^>]+name=["\']twitter:card["\'][^>]*>', resp.text, re.I
+        )
+        assert match, "No <meta name=\"twitter:card\"> tag found on the homepage"