What is llms.txt?
llms.txt is a proposed convention for a Markdown file at the root of a website, at /llms.txt, that gives large language models a short, curated guide to the site: what it is about and links to its most useful pages. It was proposed in 2024 and is not an official web standard.
What goes in the file
A heading with the site name, a short summary, then sections of links with one-line descriptions. Some sites also publish llms-full.txt with the full text of their key pages in one file.
Does it help?
Support varies. Some AI tools and developer platforms read it, and the major search engines have not said they use it for ranking. It is cheap to add and keep current, so it is best treated as a helpful extra rather than a ranking factor.
How it relates to other files
robots.txt controls crawling, and an XML sitemap lists every URL. llms.txt does neither; it is a reading guide for AI tools. It works best alongside schema markup and clear page content.
