diff --git a/scripts/community-tools.py b/scripts/community-tools.py
index 14ab37e..e55c1c2 100644
--- a/scripts/community-tools.py
+++ b/scripts/community-tools.py
@@ -1,13 +1,33 @@
 import os
 import posixpath
+
 from mkdocs.exceptions import PluginError
+from mkdocs.plugins import get_plugin_logger
 from mkdocs.utils import get_relative_url
 from mkdocs.utils.meta import get_data
 
+log = get_plugin_logger(__name__)
+
 meta = {}
 env = None
 macros = None
 
+# A community page must declare exactly one of these as its kind. The value is
+# compared case-sensitively when building the tables, so casing matters.
+ALLOWED_TYPES = ("service", "resource")
+
+# A maintainer can be linked in one of these ways; at least one is required.
+MAINTAINER_SOURCES = ("github", "gitlab", "repository")
+
+# Community pages that intentionally don't follow the service/resource contract
+# and must therefore be skipped by the validator.
+SKIP_VALIDATION = frozenset(
+    {
+        "community/index.md",  # the listing page itself
+        "community/sample-service/index.md",  # the template
+    }
+)
+
 
 def on_files(files, *, config):
     global meta
@@ -27,6 +47,65 @@ def on_files(files, *, config):
             except Exception as e:
                 raise PluginError(f"Error parsing {file.src_path}: {e}") from e
 
+    _validate_community_meta()
+
+
+def _validate_page(data):
+    """Return a list of problems with a community page's front matter.
+
+    An empty list means the page satisfies the contract that the community
+    tables and ``overrides/community/simple.html`` rely on. Anything else would
+    otherwise fail silently — e.g. a mis-cased ``type`` drops the page from the
+    tables with no error at all.
+    """
+    problems = []
+
+    kind = data.get("type")
+    if kind not in ALLOWED_TYPES:
+        problems.append(
+            f"'type' is {kind!r} but must be exactly one of "
+            f"{list(ALLOWED_TYPES)} (lowercase); otherwise the page is "
+            "silently omitted from the community tables"
+        )
+
+    if not str(data.get("title") or "").strip():
+        problems.append("'title' is required and must be non-empty")
+
+    if not str(data.get("description") or "").strip():
+        problems.append("'description' is required and must be non-empty")
+
+    maintainer = data.get("maintainer")
+    if not isinstance(maintainer, dict):
+        problems.append(
+            "'maintainer' is required and must be a mapping with a 'name' and "
+            "at least one of " + ", ".join(MAINTAINER_SOURCES)
+        )
+    else:
+        if not str(maintainer.get("name") or "").strip():
+            problems.append("'maintainer.name' is required and must be non-empty")
+        if not any(str(maintainer.get(k) or "").strip() for k in MAINTAINER_SOURCES):
+            problems.append(
+                "'maintainer' must define at least one of "
+                + ", ".join(MAINTAINER_SOURCES)
+            )
+
+    return problems
+
+
+def _validate_community_meta():
+    """Warn about malformed community pages.
+
+    Problems are logged as warnings so local ``mkdocs serve`` still renders,
+    while CI (``make test`` runs ``mkdocs build --strict``) promotes them to
+    build failures — catching bad metadata before it silently breaks the tables.
+    """
+    for file, data in meta.items():
+        src = file.src_uri
+        if not src.startswith("community/") or src in SKIP_VALIDATION:
+            continue
+        for problem in _validate_page(data):
+            log.warning("%s: %s", src, problem)
+
 
 def community_pages(filter="service"):
     tpl = env.select_template(
@@ -49,7 +128,7 @@ def community_pages(filter="service"):
             for f in files
             if meta[f].get("type") == filter
         ],
-        key=lambda it: it[0].casefold(),
+        key=lambda it: str(it[0]).casefold(),
     )
     return tpl.render(
         items=items,