llms.txt

llms.txt is a proposed convention: a plain-text file at the root of a domain that says what the site is, in one line, and lists the handful of pages worth reading first. It sits next to robots.txt and it is not markup.

It is not a ratified standard and adoption is not universal — which is exactly why it is worth eight of the hundred points in this site's audit rather than thirty. It costs one static file, it cannot hurt you, and writing it forces the same clarity the checks that definitely matter also reward.

What makes one count?

Two things, and both are commonly got wrong. It has to be served as plain text at the root of the domain — a site that returns its app shell for unknown URLs is serving a rendered page at that path, not a file, and our audit will not score it. And the first line has to describe the business the way you would describe it out loud, because that line is the most quotable thing in the file.

A short honest map beats a long automated one. If part of the site is not worth a model's attention, leaving it out is the useful signal.