The second edition of llms.txt is out
On August 10, 2026, the second edition of the llms.txt proposal was published - discovery relations, files in subpaths, two forms of Markdown addresses and a new role for the Optional section
On August 10, 2026, Jeremy Howard published the second edition of the llms.txt proposal. The first one came out on September 3, 2024.
The main point: the file format barely changed. What changed is everything around it.
What is new
Discovery. A page can now say where its Markdown version is and which llms.txt describes it:
<link rel="alternate" type="text/markdown" href="/docs/page.html.md"><link rel="describedby" href="/docs/llms.txt">The same can be sent in the Link response header.
Files in subpaths. A file describes the addresses under its own path. If several files match, the agent takes the most specific one.
Two forms of Markdown addresses. Both page.html.md and page.md are allowed.
How the file is used. An agent scans the file or searches it, then follows the links.
What was removed
The llms_txt2ctx tool and the llms-ctx.txt files. The special meaning of the Optional section went with them: it is now a convention for secondary links, not a command to a tool.
What the edition does not contain
llms-full.txtandllms-small.txt. They are an ecosystem convention; the proposal has no such files.- An address in
/.well-known/. It is rejected with an explanation: many authors control only a path on a shared host. - The status of a standard. It is still a proposal by one author, not an IETF or W3C document.
Does anything need to change
A file written by the first edition stays correct. Three things are worth doing:
- Add a
rel="describedby"link to the file on pages. - If Markdown versions exist, add
rel="alternate". - Do not count on the
Optionalsection being handled in a special way.
The table of differences: Changes in v2. The relations with server examples: Discovery of the file and Markdown versions.