How to add llms.txt to a custom website

A custom website means hand-built code with no platform rules in the way: you already have file access, and the file belongs wherever your stack puts static files, next to robots.txt. The constraint is not permission but conventions: where your build puts public assets is where llms.txt goes, and that place is different in every framework.

Why a custom website is different

Unlike a hosted platform, nobody can give you one path. The decision tree is your stack. On a static setup (Astro, Eleventy, plain HTML) you drop the file in the published root. On Next.js it goes in public/llms.txt and ships on the next deploy with no route to wire up. On Vercel, Netlify, and GitHub Pages the public folder is served as-is. The alternative on any framework is a route handler that returns the text with a text/plain content type; that route is worth building only if your file needs to change with your content (pulling from the same CMS index as the rest of the site).

The file you are publishing

The full format lives in our llms.txt guide. This is the file itself, from a sample outdoor gear store:

# Cedar and Pine Outfitters
> Cedar and Pine Outfitters sells outdoor apparel and camping gear from its Seattle storefront, shipping across the US. Runs an in-house tent repair service and publishes beginner backpacking guides.
## Shop
- [Tents](https://[yourdomain.com]/collections/tents): Two-person and family tents, described by season rating and packed weight.
- [Sleeping bags](https://[yourdomain.com]/collections/sleeping-bags): Down and synthetic bags, described by temperature rating.
- [Backpacks](https://[yourdomain.com]/collections/backpacks): Day packs and multi-day packs, listed with capacity in liters.
## Guides
- [Backpacking checklist](https://[yourdomain.com]/pages/backpacking-checklist): Complete gear list for a first overnight trip.
- [Tent care and repair](https://[yourdomain.com]/pages/tent-repair): How the in-house repair service works, turnaround and pricing.
## Policies
- [Shipping and returns](https://[yourdomain.com]/pages/shipping-returns): Free shipping over 75 dollars. 60-day returns on unused gear.
## Optional
- [Journal](https://[yourdomain.com]/blogs/journal): Trip reports and gear maintenance notes.

Steps

1. Check first. Open [yourdomain.com]/llms.txt in a browser, replacing yourdomain.com with your actual domain. If your site is brand new, expect a 404.

1. Find where static files land. Look at where your robots.txt is served from in your project; llms.txt goes in the same place. On most frameworks that is a public/ or static/ directory, or the output folder of your static build.

1. Add the file. Write your Markdown (what goes in it is covered in our llms.txt guide), name it exactly llms.txt in all lowercase, and commit it with the rest of the project so it survives deploys. If you take the route-handler path instead, return it with a text/plain; charset=utf-8 content type.

1. Deploy and verify. Open [yourdomain.com]/llms.txt and confirm a 200 status and plain text. Check the headers with curl -I https://[yourdomain.com]/llms.txt and confirm the 200 and the text/plain content type. If your host serves .txt files with the wrong content type or forces a download, that is a host configuration setting to fix, not a file problem.

What this guide does not cover

Generating the file dynamically from your CMS (a developer task, worth it once the catalog outgrows a hand-maintained list). Server-level logging and crawler monitoring. The transaction layer.