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AI Readiness Auditor — validates the /llms.txt file that guides AI agents through a site’s content.

AI Readiness

Agents get a concise, structured map of the site instead of scraping HTML chrome.

Interoperability

The file follows llms.txt v2 so parsers and agents can read it with fixed markdown rules.
/llms.txt is a markdown file at the site origin that gives AI agents a short project summary and curated links to LLM-friendly pages. This auditor fetches origin /llms.txt (required) and /llms-full.txt (optional), then checks hosting headers and the v2 format: an H1 name, an optional blockquote, H2 file-list sections, and [name](url) links.

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How it works

The auditor requests the origin files and then validates every HTTP 200 response:
  1. Required file — GET {origin}/llms.txt. If the file is missing or not available, the audit is a FAIL. An unreachable host is an ERROR.
  2. Optional full file — GET {origin}/llms-full.txt. A missing or unreachable full file is ignored; when it returns HTTP 200, the same content-type and format rules apply.
  3. Hosting — each present file must send Content-Type: text/plain, text/markdown, or text/x-markdown (parameters such as ; charset=UTF-8 are ignored).
  4. Format — each present file is checked against llms.txt v2: a non-empty H1, a blockquote summary, H2 file-list sections, and markdown links under those sections.
  5. Specification pin — every run emits 37A-LlmsTxtAuditor-100 (INFORMATION) naming llms.txt v2 (10 Aug 2026) and nbs/index.qmd commit 6e55a65a7a4b541779dd0585f508717a6ea89a9e. That check does not change overall status.
Any failing rule makes the audit FAIL; otherwise a missing blockquote, H2, or link list produces a WARNING; otherwise the audit is a SUCCESS. An optional BOM at the start of the file is stripped before parsing.

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What it audits

Every row maps to one checkRule* method and one CheckCode. Content-type and format rules run once per HTTP 200 file (/llms.txt and, when present, /llms-full.txt). 37A-LlmsTxtAuditor-100 is emitted on every run, including missing-file and fetch errors. CheckCode suffixes use status ranges: 100 information, 200 success, 300–399 warning, 400–499 fail, 500–599 error.

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Output documentation

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Risks and considerations

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AI discoverability

  • Without /llms.txt, agents must scrape HTML (navigation, ads, JavaScript) and guess which pages matter, wasting context and missing the curated path through the site.
  • An empty or missing H1 leaves the file without the only required v2 section, so parsers that look for # {name} treat the document as incomplete.

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Agent interoperability

  • Serving /llms.txt as text/html (a common 404 or CMS page) causes clients that trust Content-Type to skip or mis-parse the file.
  • H2 sections without [name](url) links give agents headings but no files to fetch, so the overview cannot be followed on demand.

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Optional full file

  • /llms-full.txt is a community convention, not part of v2. This auditor validates it only when it returns HTTP 200; a missing full file is not a finding.
  • v2 no longer gives ## Optional mechanical meaning. Secondary links may still live under that heading by convention; their absence is not a finding.