/terms/llms-txt
LLMS.txt
Citation status
Last checked 2026-05-21
What is LLMS.txt?
A community proposal by Jeremy Howard of Answer.AI, introduced in September 2024. The file lives at https://example.com/llms.txt and contains: site title, a one-paragraph description, then a Markdown list of canonical resources organized by topic. The intent is to give LLMs a curated, low-friction entry point to a site — rather than expecting them to crawl an entire sitemap and infer relevance.
Status in 2026
Standardization-stage proposal. No major AI engine has officially announced support, but ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude have all been observed consulting llms.txt files when present. Anthropic's Claude has the most documented support among the major models. Adoption among AI-search-conscious sites is growing month-over-month, particularly in technical documentation and reference resources.
How it relates to other concepts
- Companion to robots.txt (which controls bot access) and sitemap.xml (which lists every URL for indexing).
- Direct technical implementation of GEO at the site-architecture layer.
- Often paired with
llms-full.txt— the longer-form alternative that includes the actual content of key pages, not just links. - Useful entry point for AI Search Optimization programs that want a single canonical machine-readable site overview.
Related terms
FAQ
- Is LLMS.txt an official standard?
- No. It is a community proposal, not a binding standard yet. No major AI engine has officially confirmed support. Adopting it has no downside — engines that don't support it ignore the file, and the cost to author is minimal.
- What goes in LLMS.txt?
- Site name, a one-paragraph description, then Markdown sections with links to canonical resources organized by topic. Keep it concise — the file is meant to be readable in a single screen by both humans and AI models.
- Does LLMS.txt replace sitemap.xml?
- No. Sitemap.xml is for search-engine indexing and lists every URL on your site. LLMS.txt is curated AI guidance — a hand-selected, topically-organized subset. Sites concerned with AI-search visibility should ship both.