In 2024, Jeremy Howard of Answer.AI proposed a new standard: llms.txt. It's a markdown file placed at the root of your website — yoursite.com/llms.txt — that helps AI language models understand what your site is about and which pages are most important. Think of it as robots.txt for AI.
Why Does This Exist?
When ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity visits your website, it sees hundreds of pages — blog posts, legal pages, old landing pages, navigation elements. It has no way to know which pages actually matter for understanding your business. llms.txt solves this by providing a curated shortlist of your most important content.
It's not replacing robots.txt (which controls crawler access) or sitemap.xml (which maps indexable pages). It's a layer on top — a curated guide specifically for AI consumption.
The Format
llms.txt uses Markdown. The only required element is an H1 with your site or business name. Everything else is optional but recommended:
# Summit Plumbing Co.
24/7 emergency plumbing services in Denver, CO. Licensed, insured, family-owned since 2015.
Summit Plumbing provides residential and commercial plumbing services including emergency repairs, water heater installation, drain cleaning, and bathroom remodels. Serving the greater Denver metro area.
Services
- Emergency Plumbing: 24/7 emergency response, average 45-minute arrival
- Water Heaters: Installation, repair, and tankless conversions
- Drain Cleaning: Residential and commercial drain services
About
- About Us: Company history, licenses, and credentials
- FAQ: Common plumbing questions and pricing
- Service Areas: Cities and neighborhoods we serve
Optional
Related Files
The emerging convention includes several companion files:
/llms.txt— Primary index file/llms-full.txt— Includes all pages (even optional ones).mdappended to URLs — Clean markdown versions of HTML pages for easier AI parsing
Who's Already Using It
Anthropic, Cursor, and a growing number of tech companies have adopted llms.txt. WordPress plugins like AIOSEO and Yoast now support auto-generating these files. It's not yet an official standard (no RFC), but adoption is accelerating.
How to Create One
This takes five minutes:
- Create a file called
llms.txtin your site's root directory - Add your business name as an H1
- Write a one-line summary as a blockquote
- List your most important pages under H2 sections
- Mark secondary content under an "Optional" H2
That's it. No special tools, no subscriptions, no monthly fees. It's a text file.
Should You Pay Someone to Do This?
No. This is a markdown file with links to your own pages. Any competent web developer includes this as part of building your site — the same way they include robots.txt and a sitemap. If someone is charging you a monthly fee for an llms.txt file, they're charging you a monthly fee for five minutes of work.
At Bindingstone, we include llms.txt on every site we build. It's a standard part of our deployment process, not a line item on an invoice.
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