How do I help ChatGPT and other AI assistants understand my site?
More and more people ask an AI assistant — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity —
questions like "what does this business do?" An llms.txt file gives those tools
a clean, correct summary of your site so they answer accurately instead of
guessing from scattered page text. It's the same idea as a sitemap
(Does my site have a sitemap?), but written for AI rather than search crawlers.
How it works
- Ask. Use the prompt below, or just say "help AI understand my site". Your AI runs a findability check first — one look that covers your sitemap, your robots file, your llms.txt, and whether anything has drifted out of date.
- It builds the file. If there's no
llms.txt, it writes one from your real pages — your site's description plus every page with its title and summary. It never invents pages or copy, and it leaves out any page you've marked as hidden from search. It's written by the same one ask that keeps your sitemap fresh, so the two files never disagree. - You approve. Like every bernard change, the new file lands in a draft with a preview link. Nothing is live until you press Approve — see How do I approve or undo changes?.
Keeping it fresh
An llms.txt is a snapshot, so it can fall behind — you add a page and the file
doesn't know about it yet. bernard watches for exactly this: the findability check
reports when your llms.txt has drifted behind your pages, and your AI offers the
refresh. You never have to remember; you just have to say yes.
And the one thing only you can do for search engines is register with Google (Get my site into Google) — AI assistants find the llms.txt on their own.
The prompt
“Check my site's findability and, if I don't have an llms.txt or it's out of date, create or refresh it and show me the draft.”
The [bracketed] parts are yours to fill in. First time? Connect bernard to your AI over MCP — a one-time setup in bernard → your site → Use your own AI — then paste the prompt above.
Questions people ask
- What is llms.txt?
- A small text file at yoursite.com/llms.txt that gives AI assistants a plain-language map of your site — a short description plus each page with its title and summary. It's an emerging convention the way sitemap.xml is for search engines, but aimed at AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity rather than crawlers.
- Do I have to write it myself?
- No. If your site is hosted with bernard, ask your AI to check your findability. It reads your actual pages, builds the llms.txt from their real titles and descriptions, and gives you a preview — nothing is live until you approve.
- Will this let AI tools do things I haven't allowed?
- No. llms.txt only describes pages that are already public; it grants no extra access and defers to your robots.txt. It just helps AI answer questions about you accurately instead of guessing.
- Does it need updating when I add a page?
- Yes — like your sitemap, it's a snapshot. bernard's findability check reports when your llms.txt has fallen behind your pages, and your AI offers the refresh — one ask updates your sitemap and llms.txt together. You just say yes.