Definition
llms.txt is a proposed Markdown file at the root of a website that gives AI tools a short summary of the site and links to its most useful pages.
llms.txt explained
The llms.txt proposal was published by Jeremy Howard in September 2024. The file lives at /llms.txt and is written in Markdown: a top heading with the site or project name, an optional one-paragraph summary, some context, then sections listing key pages with a one-line description each. The idea is to give AI agents a clean, curated map instead of making them parse navigation, scripts and banners.
It is a proposal, not an adopted web standard, and search engines don't require it. Google says no special AI text files are needed to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. Whether individual AI assistants read llms.txt when answering questions varies and is not well documented.
It is quick to create and maintain, so many sites publish one as a small extra, especially documentation sites where developers point coding agents at it directly. It doesn't replace crawlable pages, an XML sitemap or a sensible robots.txt file.
Example
Your software company publishes /llms.txt listing the product overview, pricing page, API docs and top guides, each with a one-line description. A developer points their coding assistant at the file and it finds the right API page first time, instead of wading through the marketing site.
Why it matters
It helps some AI tools and developer agents find your key pages quickly, but it is a small extra, not a substitute for technical SEO and crawler access.
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- llmstxt.org: The /llms.txt file (proposal by Jeremy Howard) (checked 30 Sep 2026)
- Google Search Central: AI features and your website (updated 10 Dec 2025)
Published by Vidern, founded and led by Malhar Shah. Updated .
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Related terms
- robots.txtrobots.txt is a plain-text file at the root of a website that tells crawlers which URLs they may or may not request.
- XML sitemapAn XML sitemap is a file that lists the URLs you want search engines to crawl, with optional details such as when each page last changed.
- AI crawlerAn AI crawler is an automated bot run by an AI company that fetches web pages to train models, to build a search index, or to answer a user's question.
- GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)GEO (generative engine optimization) is making your brand easy for AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini to find, trust and cite.