● The short answer
llms.txt is a proposed Markdown file at your site's root that gives AI agents a short, curated summary of your site and links to its most useful pages. It was proposed in 2024 and is cheap to add, but it is not a ranking signal, and Google says no AI text file is needed for its AI features. Treat it as optional housekeeping, not a strategy.
Key takeaways
- llms.txt is a proposed Markdown file at your site root that gives AI agents a curated summary and link list.
- It was proposed in September 2024 and is not an adopted standard for major AI search products.
- Google says no AI text file is needed to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode.
What llms.txt is
llms.txt is a plain-text file written in Markdown and placed at the root of a website (yoursite.com/llms.txt). It was proposed by Jeremy Howard in September 2024 at llmstxt.org. The idea is simple: large language models work best with short, clean context, and most websites are full of navigation, scripts and marketing copy. An llms.txt file gives an AI agent a curated starting point.
The proposed format has a few parts:
- An H1 with the name of the site or project (required).
- A short blockquote summary of what the site is.
- Optional paragraphs with key details.
- H2 sections listing links to important pages, each with a short note.
- An "Optional" section for secondary links an agent can skip.
The proposal also suggests offering clean Markdown versions of pages (for example, page.md alongside page.html). The specification says the file is mainly useful at inference time, when an agent is helping a user, rather than for model training.
The how is where we come in.
What we walk through with you, for your business:
- Who actually reads it
- Should you add one?
- How to create one in five steps
- Our take
Every business is different, so the plan is too. Tell us where you want to show up and we will show you what it takes.
Talk to usMore questions
Is llms.txt the same as robots.txt?
No. robots.txt tells crawlers which URLs they may or may not fetch, and major crawlers honor it. llms.txt does not grant or deny access; it is a curated guide that suggests which pages are most useful. You still control AI crawler access through robots.txt and your firewall or CDN settings.
Can llms.txt hurt my site?
Not directly. The main risks are maintenance: a file that lists outdated prices, removed services or dead links can mislead an agent that reads it. Keep it short, factual and updated whenever key pages change, and it is harmless at worst and mildly helpful at best.
Sources
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