# Markdown for Agents vs llms.txt

The map lists them as complementary: sites and agents commonly implement both.

[4 Read](/category/read/) [Markdown for Agents](/protocols/cloudflare-markdown-for-agents/) · [4 Read](/category/read/) [llms.txt](/protocols/llms-txt/)

|  | [Markdown for Agents](/protocols/cloudflare-markdown-for-agents/) | [llms.txt](/protocols/llms-txt/) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Lifecycle step | 4 Read: Give me the content | 4 Read: Give me the content |
| Answers | Can an agent ask a site for a Markdown version of an HTML page, instead of parsing the HTML itself? | Where can an agent find a concise, curated map of a site's content, written for language models rather than browsers? |
| Governed by | Cloudflare; a feature of its network documented in Cloudflare's developer docs, not submitted to a standards body; it rides on ordinary HTTP content negotiation | Jeremy Howard / Answer.AI; maintained as an open proposal in the AnswerDotAI/llms-txt GitHub repository with a public Discord for implementation discussion |
| Status (issuer's words) | Vendor feature, available to Pro, Business and Enterprise plans and SSL for SaaS customers at no cost; not a standards-track document | "This is v2 of the proposal" — explicitly a community proposal open for input, not a standards-track document |
| Version | Generally available on Pro, Business and Enterprise plans; docs last updated 2026-10-09 (2026-02-12) | v2 (2026-08) |
| Form / transport | HTTP header | well-known file |
| Found at | HTTP content negotiation: the client sends Accept: text/markdown and an enabled zone answers with Content-Type: text/markdown; charset=utf-8 and Vary: Accept. There is no manifest or well-known file. | /llms.txt (or /<path>/llms.txt, e.g. /docs/llms.txt) |
| Implementation | shipping — Cloudflare's own developer docs and blog answer Accept: text/markdown with text/markdown (our check, 2026-10-20); Cloudflare publishes no count of enabled zones | multi-implementation — Rankability (Tranco top-1000, June 2026: 8.7%) and SE Ranking (~300,000 domains analyzed: 10.13%) — independent third-party publisher-side counts, not our own probe |
| Evidence | 3 verified | 4 verified, 4 reported |
| Primary use case | Serve readable content to agents | Serve readable content to agents |
| Last verified | 2026-10-23 (current) | 2026-10-23 (current) |
| Specification | [https://developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/reference/markdown-for-agents/](https://developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/reference/markdown-for-agents/) | [https://llmstxt.org](https://llmstxt.org) |

## When to use which

- Choose Markdown for Agents when your question is “Can an agent ask a site for a Markdown version of an HTML page, instead of parsing the HTML itself?” and you accept its maturity: status "Vendor feature, available to Pro, Business and Enterprise plans and SSL for SaaS customers at no cost; not a standards-track document", implementation shipping (Cloudflare's own developer docs and blog answer Accept: text/markdown with text/markdown (our check, 2026-10-20); Cloudflare publishes no count of enabled zones).
- Choose llms.txt when your question is “Where can an agent find a concise, curated map of a site's content, written for language models rather than browsers?” and you accept its maturity: status ""This is v2 of the proposal" — explicitly a community proposal open for input, not a standards-track document", implementation multi-implementation (Rankability (Tranco top-1000, June 2026: 8.7%) and SE Ranking (~300,000 domains analyzed: 10.13%) — independent third-party publisher-side counts, not our own probe).

Guidance is derived from the two records (question, status, implementation, prerequisites, pairings), not from opinion. Each record's page carries its numbered references.

## Read the full articles

- [Markdown for Agents](/protocols/cloudflare-markdown-for-agents/): Can an agent ask a site for a Markdown version of an HTML page, instead of parsing the HTML itself?
- [llms.txt](/protocols/llms-txt/): Where can an agent find a concise, curated map of a site's content, written for language models rather than browsers?

Ask the MCP server to compare any two: the compare-protocols prompt, or get on both ids. [Connect](/connect/).

[cloudflare-markdown-for-agents.json](/data/protocols/cloudflare-markdown-for-agents.json) · [llms-txt.json](/data/protocols/llms-txt.json) · [Markdown](/compare/cloudflare-markdown-for-agents-vs-llms-txt/index.md)