What it means
llms.txt is a Markdown file published at the root of a website (e.g. orkkid.com/llms.txt) that gives AI engines a clean, structured map of the site's most important content. The proposal originated from Jeremy Howard in 2024 and has been adopted by an increasing number of brands through 2025 and 2026.
Where robots.txt tells search crawlers what to index, llms.txt tells LLMs what to read first.
Why it matters
LLMs have limited context windows and are noisy when fed full HTML pages with navigation, ads, and footer junk. A clean Markdown summary of your most citable content increases the odds that AI engines extract the right facts about your business. Some engines, including ChatGPT and Claude when retrieving live, look for an llms.txt file as a hint.
It is a low-cost technical signal that takes an hour to set up and pays off in citation accuracy.
How it's used
A typical llms.txt for a service business contains:
- Business name, location, services offered
- A short positioning statement
- Links to the most important pages: services, pricing, case studies, contact
- A link to a
/llms-full.txtif you want to provide a full text dump - Links to flagship blog posts that establish topical authority
For step-by-step instructions, read our llms.txt beginner's guide.