What belongs in it
A short site description, then grouped links to your canonical pages: product pages, docs or guides, key blog posts, legal pages. Keep descriptions honest and specific; the file is read by machines building context about your site, so clarity beats marketing gloss. Regenerate it when content changes (ours rebuilds hourly alongside the sitemap).
Set expectations correctly
No engine has committed to treating llms.txt as a ranking or citation signal. It is a courtesy layer: it can help ingestors find and frame your canonical content, and it costs minutes. Ship it, verify it serves at /llms.txt, and get back to the work that earns citations: quotable answers on indexed pages.
Frequently asked questions
Does llms.txt improve my AI citations?+
Not directly, as far as anyone can demonstrate. It reduces friction for systems ingesting your site. The citation is earned by the content itself.
Where does llms.txt live?+
At the root of your domain, e.g. yoursite.com/llms.txt, served as plain text. Ours is at seocompass.co/llms.txt if you want a live example.