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llms.txt: what is it, and does it really help?

Edited by Solucom · 12 November 2026

llms.txt is a text file, written in Markdown, placed at the root of a website to describe it to language models: what it contains, which pages matter and where to find a readable version of them. It was proposed by Jeremy Howard of Answer.AI in 2024.

Since then many consultants have presented it as the “robots.txt of artificial intelligence”, essential to get cited by ChatGPT or Google. For Google there is an official answer, and it is clear: it is not needed. Beyond that, things are less clear-cut. Here we set out what is known, what is not, and when it makes sense to create one.

What an llms.txt looks like

It is a file /llms.txt at the root of the site, or in a subfolder such as /docs/llms.txt. It follows a precise structure:

  • a title with the name of the site or project, the only mandatory part;
  • a short summary, as a blockquote;
  • optional paragraphs with the information needed to understand the rest;
  • sections with lists of links to the important pages, each with a one-line description.

The proposal also suggests offering a Markdown version of individual pages, at the same address with .md appended, for those who need to read them without menus, banners and surrounding code.

What Google says

Google has written it in its official guide to optimising for AI features in Search. You do not need llms.txt files, AI text files, special markup or Markdown versions to appear in Google Search, including AI Overviews and AI Mode, because Google Search does not use them. Creating them neither helps nor harms rankings: Google ignores them.

In the same guide Google sets out what really matters:

  • pages that can be crawled and indexed, without blocks in robots.txt, the CDN or the hosting;
  • useful, original content with first-hand experience, written for people;
  • internal links that make pages easy to find;
  • important content in text form, with images and video where they help;
  • structured data consistent with what is visible on the page, with no special schema “for AI”.

In other words, the SEO basics apply to Google’s AI answers. We cover this in AEO and GEO: getting found and cited by AI and in structured data and Schema.org.

What about ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity?

Here there is no official answer. None of the major AI assistant providers has publicly stated that it uses llms.txt to decide what to cite in search answers. Anyone promising that an llms.txt will get you into ChatGPT is promising something they cannot verify.

The case where llms.txt is genuinely useful is a different one: technical documentation. Coding agents and assistants that read documentation to write code or answer questions about a product find a clean index and Markdown pages convenient. That is why many documentation platforms generate it automatically: it is published, for example, by the documentation of Anthropic, n8n and Lovable.

When it makes sense to create one

It makes sense if:

  • you have technical documentation, APIs or a software product that others integrate: a Markdown index helps those who use coding assistants;
  • you want to give assistants that visit the site a curated summary of who you are and of your main pages, knowing that nobody guarantees they will read it;
  • it costs little: a short, hand-written file, to update when your services change.

It does not make sense if you do it instead of the basics. A slow site, with pages Google does not index or with generic content, does not improve with one more text file.

Watch out for automatically generated ones. Several WordPress SEO plugins create an llms.txt on their own. They often list the latest published content instead of the pages that matter: whoever reads it gets the wrong idea of the site. If you have one, open it and check what it says about you.

How to write a useful one, in five minutes

  1. Title: the company name.
  2. Summary: two lines on what you do and for whom, as you would write them to a colleague.
  3. Main pages: services, products, contact, about us, each with a one-line description.
  4. Documentation or guides, if you have any, in a separate section.

Put it at /llms.txt, check that it opens in the browser and make a note to update it when your services change. Nothing else is needed.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is llms.txt?

It is a Markdown text file, published at /llms.txt, that describes a website to language models: a summary and a list of the important pages, with links and descriptions. It is a 2024 proposal by Jeremy Howard (Answer.AI), not an official standard.

Does Google use llms.txt for AI Overviews and AI Mode?

No. Google has stated in its official guide that Google Search does not use llms.txt files or any other special files or markup for AI: creating them neither helps nor harms visibility.

Does llms.txt help you appear in ChatGPT?

There is no official confirmation. None of the major AI assistant providers has stated that it uses it to choose the sources of its answers. It is mainly useful for technical documentation read by coding agents.

What is the difference between llms.txt and robots.txt?

robots.txt tells crawlers what they may crawl and is respected by search engines. llms.txt grants no permissions and sets no restrictions: it is a description of the site, read only by those who choose to read it.

How do you create an llms.txt?

You write by hand a Markdown file with the site name, a short summary and a list of links to the main pages, and publish it at the root of the site. Many SEO plugins and documentation platforms generate it automatically, but it is worth checking what it contains.

Sources: Google’s guide to optimising for AI features in Search, AI features and your website (Google Search Central), the llms.txt proposal. Checked on 10 October 2026.

Do you want to know how Google and AI assistants see you? We check indexing, content, structured data and your llms.txt, if you have one, and tell you what to fix first. See our page on AEO and GEO.