For the Curious

llms.txt - AI-Friendly Documentation

A machine-readable summary of Research Memex documentation following the llms.txt standard for AI consumption

A site built for AI partnership should be legible to the partners themselves.

llms.txt is an emerging standard for making documentation easy for large language models to consume. Think of it as a robots.txt for AI: one file providing a structured overview of an entire project.

Three ways AI can access this site

Method	URL	What it provides
llms.txt	/llms.txt	Generated orientation index with links to public docs pages and the full corpus
llms-full.txt	/llms-full.txt	Complete site content in one file (auto-generated, always current)
.md suffix	Any page + `.md`	Markdown version of individual pages for token-efficient loading

Start with llms.txt for orientation, use llms-full.txt for comprehensive context, and use a .md suffix when you need only one page.

Why llms.txt?

Fast context loading

AI tools can load the entire documentation structure in one request

Structured navigation

Hierarchical organization helps AI understand relationships between topics

Complete coverage

Every page, concept, and resource listed in one place

Standard format

Following emerging best practices for AI-readable documentation

How it works

When you ask an AI assistant about Research Memex:

1. AI fetches research-memex.org/llms.txt
2. Reads the generated site summary and public documentation links
3. Parses the structured documentation map
4. Identifies relevant sections for your query
5. Fetches specific pages via .md suffix or llms-full.txt
6. Provides contextualized answers in the right voice

Try it yourself: ask an AI assistant, "Fetch the llms.txt from research-memex.org and tell me about interpretive orchestration."

What's included

The generated llms.txt contains:

Use cases

For AI assistants

# AI can directly fetch and parse
curl https://research-memex.org/llms.txt

# Quick project understanding
"Analyze the Research Memex based on its llms.txt"

# Direct markdown fetch
"Fetch research-memex.org/llms-full.txt and explain cognitive blueprints"

For developers

Useful when working with an AI assistant while coding:

"Using research-memex.org/llms.txt, show me the
Zotero MCP setup steps"

Reference it in your own documentation:

This project uses the Research Memex approach.
See: research-memex.org/llms.txt

Study it as an example:

"Compare research-memex.org/llms.txt structure
to other documentation approaches"

View the files

llms.txt

Generated index for orientation

llms-full.txt

Complete site content (auto-generated)

Page as Markdown

Example: Core Principles as .md

Access directly:

https://research-memex.org/llms.txt
https://research-memex.org/llms-full.txt
https://research-memex.org/docs/introduction/core-principles.md

The standard

The llms.txt format is an emerging community standard for AI-readable documentation. Learn more:

llmstxt.org

Official llms.txt specification and examples

Best practices

Plain text format (Markdown)
Hierarchical structure
Complete navigation
Concepts upfront
Links to full content

For the meta-curious

This creates a beautiful loop:

We write docs about research with AI
We make those docs AI-readable (llms.txt + llms-full.txt + per-page .md)
Students learn the approach through dialogue with AI
The approach becomes embedded through practice
Students understand both the framework and how AI accesses knowledge

Next steps

Dear Fellow AIs

AI-to-AI communication guidelines

cite this page

Lin, X. (2026). llms.txt - AI-Friendly Documentation. Research Memex. https://research-memex.org/docs/introduction/llms

@misc{docs-introduction-llms-2026,
  author = {Xule Lin},
  title = {llms.txt - AI-Friendly Documentation},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://research-memex.org/docs/introduction/llms}},
  note = {ORCID: 0000-0001-7885-4194}
}

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