# ai.txt

Attribution preferences for AI systems that use the content.

**[Access](/docs/access)** · checked once per host (item type `access`) · 3 checks that can fail it

It states how the site wants to be credited when an AI system uses its content, which no other file covers. Adoption of the lineage we validate is effectively zero, so a site publishing one has opted in deliberately and is worth getting right.

## Adoption

**Specification only** (L0)

A published specification or draft. Deployments are limited to the authors' own demos. Direction of travel: ► flat, as of 2026-07-28.

The Geodocs spec names no adopters. Originality.ai counted 397 ai.txt files across 3M+ tracked sites (May 2026), mostly the older Spawning opt-out variant.

## What we check

Absence is never a finding: every check below runs only once `aiTxtPresent` is true, so a site that has not
adopted this is not assessed on it and appears in no report.

| Check | Kind | Raises | On whose authority |
|---|---|---|---|
| `aiTxtNotKeyValue` | high severity | usability | Geodocs profile |
| `aiTxtInvalidSourceUrl` | medium severity | usability | Geodocs profile |
| `aiTxtUnknownAttributionValue` | medium severity | usability | Geodocs profile |

## Examples

These are the fixtures the test suite runs through the real collector, not snippets written for a document.

- Correct: `test/e2e/test-pages/access/correct.ai.txt`
- Present but wrong: `test/e2e/test-pages/access/issues.ai.txt`

## Specifications

| Document | Revision | Kind |
|---|---|---|
| [Geodocs AI Agent Content Spec](https://geodocs.dev/ai-agents/content-spec) | May 2026 | specification |

Last re-read against the published documents: 2026-08-12.