What is agents.md?
Two things share the name. Here is the open format, here is what ours is, and why they are not the same.
AGENTS.md is an open format for guiding AI coding agents: a Markdown file in the root of a code repository that tells tools how to set up, test and work on the project. Some websites, including ours, also publish an /agents.md file for AI agents visiting the site. That is a different use of the same name.
What is the AGENTS.md format?
The AGENTS.md site calls it "a README for agents": a set place to give AI coding agents the context they need to work on a project. A coding agent is an AI tool that reads and writes code for you.
- Where it lives: the root of a code repository, with extra AGENTS.md files allowed in sub-projects.
- What goes in it: setup commands, code style, how to run tests, pull request rules, security notes.
- Who looks after it: the site says it is now stewarded by the Agentic AI Foundation under the Linux Foundation.
The site says more than 60,000 open-source projects use it.
Is AI Syndicate's agents.md the AGENTS.md format?
No. Ours borrows the name for a different job. It sits at aisyndicate.com/agents.md, on the public website, not in a code repository. It is written for AI agents, browsing bots and automated readers that visit the site, not for a tool editing our code.
What ours contains:
- Who we are, and who we're not — AI Syndicate at aisyndicate.com is not the unrelated company at aisyndicate.io.
- What an agent can do here — where to find llms.txt, robots.txt and the sitemap, and public pricing.
- Which page answers which question — GEO questions go to one page, GEO vs SEO to another, law firms to a third.
- How a coding agent can apply a customer's fixes — over our MCP (Model Context Protocol) and REST API, with a customer API key.
- Official profiles, citation rules and a last-updated date.
It works alongside our llms.txt and llms-full.txt.
Should my website have an agents.md?
It is optional. No AI search engine we know of documents reading a website's agents.md, and Google says no special files are needed for AI Overviews or AI Mode. Google Search Central
It is still cheap and useful if people confuse you with another brand, or if agents need to know which page to use. Our AI Access score checks whether machine-readable files like llms.txt and agents.md exist and say the right thing. If you write code with AI tools, add a real AGENTS.md to your repository too — that is the format those tools look for.
Sources
- AGENTS.md — agents.md (Agentic AI Foundation). Read Sep 24, 2026.
- AI features and your website — Google Search Central. Read Sep 24, 2026.
Common questions
Is it AGENTS.md or agents.md?
The open format uses AGENTS.md, in capitals, in a code repository. Our website file is lowercase /agents.md — a different file with a different job.
Is agents.md the same as llms.txt?
No. llms.txt summarises a site and links its best pages. Our agents.md tells visiting agents what they can do and where to go; the AGENTS.md format tells coding tools how to work on a project.
Does agents.md help me rank in AI answers?
Not that any engine has said. Treat it as a helpful note for agents, not a ranking factor.
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