How to make an llms.txt
- Fill in your site name and a one-line summary. The summary is the first thing an AI tool reads, so say plainly what you do and for whom.
- Add sections and links. Group your key pages under headings like Docs, Guides or Pricing. Give each link a short note on what the page answers.
- Download the file and upload it to the root of your site, so it loads at
https://yourdomain.com/llms.txt. - Check it. Switch to Validate, enter your domain, and fix anything flagged.
The format
llms.txt is plain Markdown with a fixed order:
# Example
> Example is invoicing software for freelancers in the EU.
Prices are in euros and include VAT.
## Docs
- [Getting started](https://example.com/docs/start): create an account and send a first invoice
- [API reference](https://example.com/docs/api): every endpoint, with examples
## Optional
- [Changelog](https://example.com/changelog)
- One H1 with the site or project name. It is the only required part.
- A blockquote (
>) with a short summary. - Notes in plain paragraphs, if there is something an AI tool should know up front.
- H2 sections that each hold a list of links, written
- [name](url): notes. - An "Optional" section for links a tool may skip when it has little room.
What to put in it
List the pages that answer the questions people ask about you: what the product does, pricing, how to get started, the main features, docs and the API. Use full URLs. Leave out login pages, carts, tag archives and anything thin.
Keep it short. llms.txt is an index, not a copy of your site. If you want AI tools to have the full text in one place, publish it separately as llms-full.txt.
Does llms.txt help you show up in AI answers?
Nobody can promise that. llms.txt is a proposal from llmstxt.org, and the big AI companies have not said their crawlers rank sites by it. What decides whether you get cited is simpler:
- Your robots.txt lets AI search crawlers in. Check it with the AI crawler checker.
- Your pages answer questions clearly, in text a crawler can read without running JavaScript.
- Other sites link to and mention you.
An llms.txt takes ten minutes and does no harm, so it is worth having. Just don't expect it to do the work of the three points above.
Common mistakes
- Serving HTML at /llms.txt. Many single-page apps answer every path with the app's HTML. The validator flags this.
- Relative links. Write
https://example.com/pricing, not/pricing; the file is often read away from your site. - Lists of bare URLs. Give each link a name and a note, so a tool knows what it will find there.
- Thinking it blocks crawlers. It can't. Use robots.txt for that.
NoirTrack shows which AI crawlers actually fetch your pages, llms.txt included, because the server SDK sees crawlers that never run JavaScript.