{
 "url": "https://agenticweb.wiki/compare/ai-crawler-tokens-robots-vs-rsl/",
 "title": "AI Crawler User-Agent Tokens in robots.txt vs RSL",
 "description": "AI Crawler User-Agent Tokens in robots.txt vs Really Simple Licensing: The map lists them as complementary: sites and agents commonly implement both.…",
 "markdown_url": "https://agenticweb.wiki/compare/ai-crawler-tokens-robots-vs-rsl/index.md",
 "markdown": "# AI Crawler User-Agent Tokens in robots.txt vs Really Simple Licensing (RSL)\n\nThe 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.\n\n[3 Permit](/category/permit/) [AI Crawler User-Agent Tokens in robots.txt](/protocols/ai-crawler-tokens-robots/) · [3 Permit](/category/permit/) [Really Simple Licensing](/protocols/rsl/)\n\n|  | [AI Crawler User-Agent Tokens in robots.txt](/protocols/ai-crawler-tokens-robots/) | [Really Simple Licensing](/protocols/rsl/) RSL |\n| --- | --- | --- |\n| Lifecycle step | 3 Permit: What may the agent do here? | 3 Permit: What may the agent do here? |\n| 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? |\n| 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 |\n| 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' |\n| Version | Ongoing; tokens and their scopes are updated by each vendor independently | RSL 1.0 (2025-12-10) |\n| Form / transport | well-known file | document format |\n| Found at | /robots.txt | /rsl.xml |\n| Implementation | multi-implementation | shipping |\n| Evidence | 5 verified, 1 reported | 2 verified |\n| Primary use case | Control AI crawling and training use | Control AI crawling and training use |\n| Last verified | 2026-10-23 (current) | 2026-10-23 (current) |\n| Specification | [https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9309.html](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9309.html) | [https://rslstandard.org/rsl](https://rslstandard.org/rsl) |\n\n## When to use which\n\n- 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.\n- 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.\n\nGuidance is derived from the two records (question, status, implementation, prerequisites, pairings), not from opinion. Each record's page carries its numbered references.\n\n## Read the full articles\n\n- [AI Crawler User-Agent Tokens in robots.txt](/protocols/ai-crawler-tokens-robots/): 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)?\n- [Really Simple Licensing](/protocols/rsl/): What machine-readable license, price, and authorization terms govern how AI systems and crawlers may access or reuse a publisher's content?\n\nAsk the MCP server to compare any two: the compare-protocols prompt, or get on both ids. [Connect](/connect/).\n\n[ai-crawler-tokens-robots.json](/data/protocols/ai-crawler-tokens-robots.json) · [rsl.json](/data/protocols/rsl.json) · [Markdown](/compare/ai-crawler-tokens-robots-vs-rsl/index.md)\n"
}