Hey everyone,
I’ve recently been researching the new llms.txt standard and noticed that some major platforms — including Twitter’s docs.x.com/llms.txt — have started adopting it.
For those unfamiliar, this file works a bit like robots.txt, but it’s designed for large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or Perplexity.
It lets site owners tell AI crawlers which parts of their site can or cannot be used for training, and even link to clean, Markdown-based versions of their content for better AI readability.
I also came across tools like LLMText.com and the llmstxt.org spec, which promote providing Markdown or simplified versions of web pages so AI systems can understand content better.
What I’m wondering is:
Would something like this make sense for forum software such as Flarum?
Forums generate tons of user-created discussions — some very valuable, others more casual. Should we:
- Provide a machine-readable
llms.txt to control how AI agents use forum data?
- Offer optional
.md versions of discussion pages for “AI-friendly” indexing?
- Or is this unnecessary overhead for a community-driven platform?
Possible benefits:
- Better AI understanding of structured discussions.
- Increased visibility in AI-powered search/recommendation systems.
- More control over how your community’s content is used by LLMs.
Possible downsides:
- Maintenance overhead for dynamic content.
- Duplicate content or SEO confusion.
- Privacy and data ownership concerns.
I’m curious what others think — especially developers and admins managing public communities.
Should we start thinking about llms.txt and Markdown endpoints for forums, or is this just another passing trend?
One interesting aspect is that implementing llms.txt and Markdown endpoints could increase the likelihood that your site is suggested as a source by AI models in the future. For example, when someone asks a question to an LLM like ChatGPT, your forum or articles could appear as a recommended reference.
In fact, I’ve asked ChatGPT-5 directly, and it confirmed that these llms.txt files are considered during training, helping the model understand which content is allowed and more suitable as a source. This suggests that adopting such a system could make your community’s content more visible and usable for AI agents, potentially driving more engagement and traffic.
