AI search and working with a developer
What is llms.txt?
llms.txt is a proposed plain-text file at a site root giving language models a curated summary and a map of important pages. No major AI crawler is known to require or obey it, so treat it as a low-cost, well-structured summary rather than a mechanism.
Also called: LLM text file
What it is not
It is not a standard in the way robots.txt is. There is no RFC, no adoption commitment from any major provider, and no way to verify a model consulted it. Anyone claiming it is required is overselling.
Why publish one anyway
- It costs almost nothing if generated from data you already maintain
- It is genuinely useful to humans evaluating you — several people read it first
- Writing it forces a clean factual summary of what you sell and at what price
- If adoption grows, you are already there
The mistake
Writing it as a CV. A model does not need career history — it needs the facts a buyer would ask for: services with prices, terms, proof, location, hours, and common questions with direct answers.
Where this is covered in depth
A definition can only go so far. llms.txt: a fair assessment of a file nobody is obliged to read covers this properly — 2 minutes, free, no email required.
Who wrote this
Anas Bin Masud builds e-commerce sites and does technical SEO for businesses in the UK, Canada and Pakistan. These definitions come from client work rather than from a content brief — where an entry describes a mistake, it is usually one found on a real site. More about how I work.