What is llms.txt?

Key takeaways

• llms.txt is a plain-text file at your site root that summarises your site for AI systems.
• robots.txt says what not to crawl; llms.txt says what your site is about.
• Only ~10% of domains have one in 2026 — it's expected to become as standard as sitemap.xml.
• It takes under an hour to write and lives at yourdomain.com/llms.txt.
• Not sure what else you're missing? Run the free scan.

Short answer: llms.txt is a plain-text, markdown-formatted file placed at the root of your website that gives AI systems a clean, curated summary of what your site and business are. Where robots.txt tells crawlers which pages to avoid, llms.txt tells them what your site is about and where the important content lives. You'll find it (when it exists) at yourdomain.com/llms.txt.

Why llms.txt exists

AI assistants build their answers from the text and signals they can read on a page. Left to their own devices, they scrape whatever page copy they can find and infer what your business is — often getting it half wrong. llms.txt fixes that at the source: instead of guessing, the assistant gets a short, accurate, human-written summary of exactly who you are, what you offer and where your key information lives. It's the difference between a machine paraphrasing your homepage and a machine reading your own words.

The proposal comes from llmstxt.org, and adoption is early — around 10% of domains in 2026. That's the opportunity: it's expected to become as routine as sitemap.xml within a year, and the sites that add it now get read clearly while their competitors are still being guessed at.

llms.txt vs robots.txt vs sitemap.xml

They're three different files that work together. Here's how they differ:

How to create an llms.txt file (under an hour)

It's just markdown in a text file. Four steps:

1. Write the summary. An # H1 with your business name, then a one-paragraph > blockquote saying what you do, where and for whom.
2. List your key pages. A short markdown list linking your most important pages — services, pricing, contact — each with a one-line description.
3. Add company facts. Legal entity, location, founder, contact email — the details that let an AI verify you're real.
4. Publish at the root. Save it as llms.txt and upload it so it loads at yourdomain.com/llms.txt.

A copy-paste example

Here's the shape of a good llms.txt for a small business (this is close to the one this very site uses):

# Your Business Name

> One paragraph: what your business is, what it does, who it
> serves and where. Plain and factual — this is what an AI
> will use to describe you.

## Services

- [Service one](https://yourdomain.com/service-one): short description.
- [Service two](https://yourdomain.com/service-two): short description.

## Key pages

- [Pricing](https://yourdomain.com/pricing)
- [Contact](https://yourdomain.com/contact)

## Company

- Legal entity: Your Company LLC, City, Country
- Founder: Your Name
- Email: hello@yourdomain.com

Keep it accurate and keep it current. An llms.txt that contradicts your site does more harm than none at all.

llms.txt is necessary, not sufficient

Adding llms.txt is a genuine quick win, but it's one signal among several. A machine still needs a clear title and heading, structured data, open crawler access and reasonable speed — and being recommended also depends on off-site trust. If you're starting from scratch, read how to check if AI can read your website for the full picture, and why ChatGPT doesn't recommend your business for the trust half.