agents.txt
A root-level file that declares a site's identity, terms of use for AI agents, service catalog and agentic endpoints in a machine-readable form.
- name
- agents.txt
- full_name
- agents.txt
- layer
- discovery
- creator
- open community (multiple competing proposals; asturwebs reference among them)
- status
- draft (community proposal)
- year
- 2025
- one_liner
- A root-level file that declares a site's identity, terms of use for AI agents, service catalog and agentic endpoints in a machine-readable form.
- spec_url
- https://github.com/asturwebs/agents-txt
- snippet
GET /agents.txt → identity, permissions, services, agentic endpoints (with /api/agents JSON twin)- abbreviation
- agents.txt
- also_known_as
/agents.txtagent-manifest.txt (proposed 2026 rename of one variant)- canonical_spec_url
- https://github.com/asturwebs/agents-txt
- entity_uri
- https://github.com/asturwebs/agents-txt
- taxonomy_layer
- discovery
- sub_layer
- agent-capability-declaration
- protocol_type
- declaration
- central_problem
- Gives a site a sanctioned, machine-readable channel to tell AI agents who it is, what they are permitted to do, and which agentic endpoints exist — instead of agents guessing.
- maintainer
- Community proposal (asturwebs reference implementation; other variants by kaylacar, dennj, and the agent-manifest.txt rename)
- governance_body
- none (community proposal; IANA well-known registration pending review)
- license
- MIT verify-against-primary-at-build ↗ https://github.com/asturwebs/agents-txt
- maturity_tag
- experimental
- current_spec_version
- 2.0 (asturwebs variant, draft) verify-against-primary-at-build ↗ https://github.com/asturwebs/agents-txt
- spec_date
- — verify-against-primary-at-build ↗ https://github.com/asturwebs/agents-txt
- launch_date
- 2025 verify-against-primary-at-build ↗ https://github.com/asturwebs/agents-txt
- last_verified
- 2026-06-15
- transport
- Static file at the domain root (/agents.txt) with a JSON twin (/api/agents)
- core_mechanism
- A site serves a human-readable, machine-parseable file at /agents.txt declaring its identity, AI-agent terms of use, service catalog, and agentic endpoints (with a JSON twin); agents fetch it to learn what they are permitted to do. Note: multiple competing agents.txt proposals exist and one variant was renamed agent-manifest.txt in early 2026, so the format is not yet converged.
- discovery_endpoint
- /agents.txt (and /.well-known/agents.txt per pending IANA registration)
- settlement_type
- —
- adoption_metric
- — verify-against-primary-at-build ↗ https://github.com/asturwebs/agents-txt
- notable_adopters
{"value":"AsturWebs (reference implementation)","source":"https://github.com/asturwebs/agents-txt"}- relationships
{"predicate":"discovers","target":"mcp","note":"agents.txt -discovers-> MCP (research §2 seed triple): an agents.txt-class discovery file can point agents to a site's MCP / agentic endpoints."}{"predicate":"complements","target":"llms-txt","note":"agents.txt declares agent permissions/endpoints; llms.txt declares readable content — paired Layer-1 discovery files."}- ideal_use_case
- Declaring, in one root file, what AI agents are allowed to do on your site and where your agentic endpoints live.
- when_to_use
- When you want to publish agent permissions and a service/endpoint catalog beyond what llms.txt (content) or robots.txt (crawl rules) cover.
- when_not_to_use
- When you only need to expose readable content (use llms.txt) or you require a converged, stable standard — agents.txt has multiple competing drafts.
- code_example
- # /agents.txt Name: Acme Policy: agents may read and call the catalog API; no scraping of /account Services: - search: /api/search - checkout: /.well-known/agents.json#checkout
- source
- Reference variant (MIT, v2.0 draft, identity/permissions/services/endpoints, /agents.txt + /api/agents, IANA well-known pending, agent-manifest.txt rename of one variant): https://github.com/asturwebs/agents-txt . Seed triple (agents.txt discovers MCP): research §2. Honesty note: multiple competing agents.txt proposals exist.
- agent_readiness_link
- agent-readiness/discoverability
- layer_legacy
- content