AI Crawler User-Agent Tokens in robots.txt vs Really Simple Licensing (RSL)
The map lists them as complementary: sites and agents commonly implement both. AI Crawler User-Agent Tokens in robots.txt is a prerequisite of Really Simple Licensing.
| AI Crawler User-Agent Tokens in robots.txt | Really Simple Licensing RSL | |
|---|---|---|
| Lifecycle step | 3 Permit: What may the agent do here? | 3 Permit: What may the agent do here? |
| Answers | Which named AI crawler or agent user-agent tokens may a website allow or disallow in robots.txt, and what does each token actually control (search indexing, AI training, or live user-triggered fetches)? | What machine-readable license, price, and authorization terms govern how AI systems and crawlers may access or reuse a publisher's content? |
| Governed by | No single governing body; each vendor unilaterally defines and documents its own token(s); RFC 9309 (IETF, Standards Track) governs the underlying robots.txt syntax all of them use | RSL Collective, a vendor consortium; issue tracker at github.com/rslstandard/rsl |
| Status (issuer's words) | A convention, not a formal spec; each vendor's documentation is normative only for that vendor's own crawler | Recommendation (RSL's own maturity label, not a W3C/IETF Recommendation) — Document RSL-SPEC-1.0, Category 'Industry Specification' |
| Version | Ongoing; tokens and their scopes are updated by each vendor independently | RSL 1.0 (2025-12-10) |
| Form / transport | well-known file | document format |
| Found at | /robots.txt | /rsl.xml |
| Implementation | multi-implementation | shipping |
| Evidence | 5 verified, 1 reported | 2 verified |
| Primary use case | Control AI crawling and training use | Control AI crawling and training use |
| Last verified | 2026-10-23 (current) | 2026-10-23 (current) |
| Specification | https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9309.html | https://rslstandard.org/rsl |
When to use which
- Choose AI Crawler User-Agent Tokens in robots.txt when your question is “Which named AI crawler or agent user-agent tokens may a website allow or disallow in robots.txt, and what does each token actually control (search indexing, AI training, or live user-triggered fetches)?” and you accept its maturity: status "A convention, not a formal spec; each vendor's documentation is normative only for that vendor's own crawler", implementation multi-implementation.
- Choose Really Simple Licensing when your question is “What machine-readable license, price, and authorization terms govern how AI systems and crawlers may access or reuse a publisher's content?” and you accept its maturity: status "Recommendation (RSL's own maturity label, not a W3C/IETF Recommendation) — Document RSL-SPEC-1.0, Category 'Industry Specification'", implementation shipping.
Read the full articles
- AI Crawler User-Agent Tokens in robots.txt: Which named AI crawler or agent user-agent tokens may a website allow or disallow in robots.txt, and what does each token actually control (search indexing, AI training, or live user-triggered fetches)?
- Really Simple Licensing: What machine-readable license, price, and authorization terms govern how AI systems and crawlers may access or reuse a publisher's content?