llms.txt support
The llms.txt files describe how large language model crawlers can use your documentation.
They’re useful for:
Signaling which parts of your site should be avoided by AI-focused crawlers.
Documenting how models can attribute your content.
Sharing links (like a sitemap) that help LLM-powered crawlers discover content responsibly.
Read the Docs automatically generates one for you with a configuration that works for most projects.
By default, the automatically created llms.txt:
Hides versions which are set to Hidden from being indexed by LLM crawlers.
Allows crawling of all other versions.
Warning
llms.txt files are a signal to cooperating crawlers,
but they aren’t a guarantee that your pages will not be ingested.
If you require private documentation, please see Sharing private documentation.
How it works
You can customize this file to add more rules to it.
The llms.txt file will be served from the default version of your project.
This is because the llms.txt file is served at the top-level of your domain,
so we must choose a version to find the file in.
The default version is the best place to look for it.
Tool integration
Documentation tools will have different ways of generating an llms.txt file.
We have examples for some of the most popular tools below.
Sphinx uses the html_extra_path configuration value to add static files to its final HTML output.
You need to create a llms.txt file and put it under the path defined in html_extra_path.
MkDocs needs the llms.txt to be at the directory defined by the docs_dir configuration value.
See also