llms.txt is a plain-text markdown file placed at your domain root (yoursite.com/llms.txt) that gives AI models a curated map of your most important content. Modeled on robots.txt and sitemap.xml, it lists links to key pages with short descriptions so LLMs can find and cite the right material instead of crawling everything. It's an emerging, voluntary standard — provider adoption is still uneven — but it's low-effort to publish and increasingly expected on agent-friendly sites.
What goes in an llms.txt file
The format is deliberately simple: an H1 with your site or product name, an optional blockquote summary, and then markdown link lists grouped under H2 headings. Each link points to an important page with a short description of what it covers.
The goal is curation, not completeness. Unlike an XML sitemap that lists every URL, llms.txt is your editorial shortlist — the pages you most want an AI to read and cite.
- H1: the site or product name
- Blockquote: a one-line summary of what the site is
- H2 sections (e.g. Docs, Guides, Products) with markdown links + descriptions
- Optionally an llms-full.txt with the full text of key pages inlined
Does llms.txt actually work?
Honestly: it's early. The major AI providers have not all committed to reading llms.txt at inference time, so treating it as a guaranteed ranking lever would be overselling it. What it reliably does today is make your site easier for AI agents and crawlers that do support it to navigate, and it signals that you're building an agent-friendly site.
Because it's cheap to publish and carries no downside, it's a sensible part of an AEO setup — just pair it with the tactics that demonstrably matter (clear answers, structure, credibility, structured data).
How to create an llms.txt
You can hand-write one in minutes. This site publishes its own at marketing-skills.com/llms.txt, plus a clean markdown version of each page, as a working example.
Step by step
- 01List your most important pages
Pick the pages you most want AI to read and cite — docs, guides, key product pages.
- 02Write the markdown
Start with an H1 (site name), a one-line blockquote summary, then H2 groups of markdown links with short descriptions.
- 03Host it at the root
Serve the file at yoursite.com/llms.txt as plain text (content-type text/plain or text/markdown).
- 04Optionally add page-level markdown
Offer a clean .md version of key pages so agents can ingest full content without parsing HTML.
FAQ
Is llms.txt the same as robots.txt?
No. robots.txt tells crawlers what they may access; llms.txt tells AI models what's worth reading and where your best content is. They're complementary — robots.txt controls access, llms.txt curates attention.
Do AI models actually use llms.txt?
Support is still emerging and uneven across providers. Some agents and tools read it; the major chat assistants have not all committed to it at inference time. It's low-effort and forward-looking rather than a guaranteed ranking factor today.
Where do I put the llms.txt file?
At the root of your domain, served as plain text: https://yoursite.com/llms.txt — the same convention as robots.txt and sitemap.xml.
What is llms-full.txt?
An optional companion file that inlines the full text of your key pages (not just links), so an AI can ingest your content in one fetch without crawling individual URLs.
Keep going
Put this into practice
Marketing Skills gives your AI agent the AEO and SEO playbooks to do this work — free and open source.