What is llms.txt and how to create yours

llms.txt is a markdown file at the root of a site that sums up what you do and points AI models to your most important pages. It is cheap to publish, but it is not magic: here is what it does and does not do.

Where it came from

The proposal dates from September 2024 (llmstxt.org). The idea: instead of an AI model wading through menus, scripts and ads, it finds at /llms.txt a summary of the site and a short list of links, in plain text.

Who reads it today

Few, for now. In an Ahrefs study of logs from 137,000 domains, 97% of llms.txt files got no requests at all in May 2026, and AI crawlers made only 1.1% of the requests. Google says the file does not change search rankings. OpenAI and Anthropic point sites to robots.txt to control access, and publish llms.txt for their own docs.

At the same time, adoption grew 8.8 times in a year, and Chrome Lighthouse added an optional llms.txt audit in May 2026. Coding agents and tools that read documentation already use the file.

Is it worth it?

If you have documentation, a catalogue or content an agent needs to understand quickly, yes: it takes ten minutes and breaks nothing. Just do not expect traffic from it. What brings AI visits is still content readable without JavaScript, a robots.txt that lets the right agents in, and pages that answer questions.

How to write yours

A title (#) with the company name.
A quote (>) with one or two sentences on what you do and for whom.
Sections (##) with links in a list, each with a short description.
Only the pages that matter: products, pricing, contact, docs. Ten to thirty links is enough.

# Acme Widgets

> Acme makes industrial widgets in Curitiba and ships across Brazil. Prices, specs and lead times are on the product pages.

## Products
- [Widget catalogue](https://acme.example/products): every model with specs and price
- [Lead times](https://acme.example/shipping): delivery by region

## Company
- [About](https://acme.example/about)
- [Contact and quotes](https://acme.example/contact)

Publish it at https://example.com/llms.txt as plain text. To go further, also serve each page as markdown, which agents read most easily.

See who requests it

Knocklog shows whether any AI agent requested your llms.txt and which pages they read most. The free check confirms the file exists, and the Pro plan drafts one from your site's pages.

Check whether your site has llms.txt

The free check looks at llms.txt, robots.txt and whether your content is readable without JavaScript.