# Mintlify test: with llms.txt an agent hits fewer missing pages

> Mintlify compared four documentation formats on 20 sites and 2,400 runs - what changed, what stayed the same and why the source has to be treated as an interested party

Page: https://llms-full-txt.ru/en/blog/mintlify-markdown-benchmark/
Site index: https://llms-full-txt.ru/en/llms.txt

Event date: 2026-07-17

Published: 2026-10-03

On July 17, 2026, the documentation platform [Mintlify](https://www.mintlify.com/blog/llms-txt-agent-benchmark) published a comparison: how agents cope with questions about documentation when they get it in different formats.

The source is an interested party. Mintlify creates `llms.txt` and Markdown versions for its customers, and the test ran on sites of its own platform.

## What was compared

Four variants of the same documentation:

1. pages in HTML;
2. pages in Markdown;
3. Markdown with a link to `llms.txt`;
4. Markdown with the content of `llms.txt` inside the page.

Agents running OpenAI and Anthropic models were asked five questions on each of 20 sites, three times in each format. 2,400 runs in total.

## What came out

| Format | Requests to missing addresses per task |
|---|---|
| HTML | 2.23 |
| Markdown | 1.42 |
| Markdown and `llms.txt` | 0.11 |

Answer accuracy barely changed: in every format it stayed above 90%.

## How to read it

The file did not make answers more correct. It cut the wandering: with a map, an agent stops guessing addresses and follows links.

This matches how the second edition of the proposal describes the file: an agent scans `llms.txt` and follows the links it needs.

## What the test does not show

- That bots of AI search systems behave the same way. The test covered agents that were given a task and a site.
- That the result carries over to shops and blogs. All 20 sites are documentation on one platform.
- That a site will be mentioned in answers more often.

## What a site owner should do

If you run documentation, the benefit is measurable: fewer wasted agent requests. How to serve Markdown and connect it with the file: [Markdown versions of pages](https://llms-full-txt.ru/en/guides/markdown-pages/).