LLM Documentation

When AI assistants (Claude, ChatGPT, etc.) fetch a documentation page, they receive the raw HTML but typically don't execute JavaScript. Single-page applications and JavaScript-heavy frameworks render very little useful content without JS. This means an AI fetching your docs may get almost nothing.

The solution: provide plain-text versions of your documentation that are optimized for LLM consumption.

The Convention

The emerging standard (see llmstxt.org) is to serve two plain-text files alongside your documentation:

File	Purpose
`llms.txt`	Short summary — product description, links, and table of contents
`llms-full.txt`	Complete documentation as plain Markdown

These files should be served at the root of your documentation:

https://docs.example.com/myproduct/v5/llms.txt
https://docs.example.com/myproduct/v5/llms-full.txt

Shelf serves these files like any other static file — just include them in your deployment archive.

Making the Files Discoverable

Link Tags in the HTML Head

Add <link> tags to your HTML <head> so AI tools can find the LLM-optimized versions when they fetch any page:

html

<link rel="alternate" type="text/plain" href="/llms.txt"
      title="LLM documentation (summary)">
<link rel="alternate" type="text/plain" href="/llms-full.txt"
      title="LLM documentation (full)">

The leading / makes the path root-relative. Shelf's base path rewriting rewrites it to include the correct product/version prefix (e.g., /configuration/v5/llms.txt).

This is similar to how RSS feeds are discoverable via <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">.

Visible Link

Additionally, add a visible link in your navigation or footer. This helps users who want to share documentation with AI assistants, and some AI tools also follow visible links. For example, the Marten documentation includes a "LLM Friendly Docs" link in the top navigation.

Using Both

We recommend using both approaches. The <link> tags are what AI tools parse programmatically, while the visible link helps human users discover the feature.

VitePress Setup

For VitePress projects, the vitepress-plugin-llms plugin handles everything automatically. It's used by major projects including Vite, Vue.js, and Vitest.

Installation

bash

npm install -D vitepress-plugin-llms

Configuration

// .vitepress/config.ts
import { defineConfig } from 'vitepress'
import llmstxt from 'vitepress-plugin-llms'

export default defineConfig({
  // Link tags for discoverability
  head: [
    ['link', {
      rel: 'alternate',
      type: 'text/plain',
      href: '/llms.txt',
      title: 'LLM documentation (summary)'
    }],
    ['link', {
      rel: 'alternate',
      type: 'text/plain',
      href: '/llms-full.txt',
      title: 'LLM documentation (full)'
    }],
  ],

  // Plugin generates llms.txt and llms-full.txt during build
  vite: {
    plugins: [llmstxt()],
  },

  themeConfig: {
    nav: [
      // Visible link in the navigation bar
      { text: 'LLM Docs', link: '/llms-full.txt', target: '_blank' },
    ],
  },
})

That's it. When you run vitepress build, the plugin:

Scans for Markdown pages in your project
Generates llms.txt (summary with links) and llms-full.txt (complete documentation)
Includes them in the build output

The generated files end up in your deployment archive automatically.

Verify Coverage

After building, check the generated llms-full.txt to make sure all your pages are included. By default, the plugin may exclude some files it considers unnecessary. If pages are missing, try adjusting the plugin options:

llmstxt({
  excludeUnnecessaryFiles: false,  // include all pages
  ignoreFiles: ['changelog.md'],   // explicitly exclude specific files
})

See the plugin documentation for all available options.

Shelf Integration

Shelf's base path rewriting takes care of rewriting the href values in the <link> tags to include the correct product/version prefix. No additional configuration needed.

Other Frameworks

For non-VitePress documentation, the approach is the same:

Generate llms.txt and llms-full.txt as part of your build process
Include them in the deployment archive alongside your HTML
Add <link> tags and a visible link for discoverability

How you generate the files depends on your framework and tooling. The content should be clean, readable Markdown without framework-specific syntax.

LLM Documentation ​

The Convention ​

Making the Files Discoverable ​

Link Tags in the HTML Head ​

Visible Link ​

Using Both ​

VitePress Setup ​

Installation ​

Configuration ​

Shelf Integration ​

Other Frameworks ​