How to Add agents.md to Your Shopify Store (2026 Guide)

Shopify announced customizable /agents.md, /llms.txt, and /llms-full.txt theme templates on May 28, 2026. These routes can help an agent locate public store evidence, but they do not override robots rules or repair incorrect product data.

What five public stores return

Observed July 27, 2026:

Store	/agents.md	/llms.txt	Observed behavior
The Woobles	200 Markdown	200 Markdown	both began with the same Shopify agent instructions
Rhode	200 Markdown	200 Markdown	both began with the same Shopify agent instructions
HexClad UK	200 Markdown	200 Markdown	both began with the same Shopify agent instructions
Ring Australia	404 HTML	404 HTML	this non-Shopify storefront did not expose the routes
MyFonts	200 Markdown	200 text	llms.txt contained a separate versioned overview

The comparison shows two valid patterns: Shopify-generated mirrored guidance and intentionally separate files. A 404 is not proof that product pages are blocked; Ring’s sampled product page still returned 200 to all tested clients.

Step 1: inspect current routes

for path in agents.md llms.txt llms-full.txt; do
  printf '\n--- /%s ---\n' "$path"
  curl -sSIL "https://example.com/$path" | sed -n '1,12p'
done

Then inspect content:

curl -sSL https://example.com/agents.md | sed -n '1,120p'
curl -sSL https://example.com/llms.txt | sed -n '1,120p'

Record status, redirect, content type, and whether the bodies are intentionally identical.

Step 2: decide what the file should do

A useful file answers:

• what the store sells
• which market or language the file represents
• where canonical collections and products live
• which policy pages govern shipping, returns, warranty, and subscriptions
• where customer support is available
• which pages should be treated as authoritative

It should not copy the whole catalog or make unsupported claims such as “recommended by leading AI assistants.”

Step 3: add a Shopify theme template

In Shopify admin:

Online Store → Themes → duplicate the live theme → Edit code

Add templates/agents.md.liquid.

# {{ shop.name }}

{{ shop.description }}

## Authoritative storefront pages
- [All products]({{ shop.url }}/collections/all)
- [Shipping policy]({{ shop.url }}/policies/shipping-policy)
- [Return policy]({{ shop.url }}/policies/refund-policy)
- [Contact]({{ shop.url }}/pages/contact)

## Priority collections
{% for collection in collections limit: 8 %}
{% unless collection.handle == 'frontpage' or collection.products_count == 0 %}
- [{{ collection.title }}]({{ shop.url }}{{ collection.url }})
{% endunless %}
{% endfor %}

Shopify documents optional templates/llms.txt.liquid and templates/llms-full.txt.liquid files when separate output is required. Without them, the routes can mirror agents.md.

Step 4: keep product facts on product pages

The Woobles default agent instructions returned successfully, but its Pierre product page still showed a stock conflict between visible content and Product offers. Agent guidance cannot resolve that conflict.

Use agents.md as a map. Keep price, availability, ingredients, dimensions, compatibility, and variant facts on canonical product pages where they can remain current.

Step 5: verify the preview and live theme

curl -sS -D agents-headers.txt \
  https://example.com/agents.md \
  -o agents.md

rg -n '404|password|challenge|Liquid error|myshopify' \
  agents-headers.txt agents.md

Check every linked URL:

rg -o 'https://[^ )]+' agents.md | while read -r url; do
  curl -sSIL --max-redirs 5 "$url" | sed -n '1p'
done

Common failures

• Liquid error text appears in the Markdown
• preview-theme URLs leak into production
• empty or private collections are listed
• market links redirect to another currency
• policy claims are copied and later become stale
• llms-full.txt becomes a massive duplicate catalog
• the file says a product is available instead of linking to live availability

Rollback

Publish from a duplicate theme. If the output is malformed, restore the previous theme or remove the custom template so Shopify’s default behavior resumes.

Acceptance criteria

• expected routes return the intended status and Markdown content type
• every link is public, canonical, and market-correct
• no private catalog or customer data appears
• statements match visible storefront evidence
• product facts remain owned by product and policy pages
• robots and WAF access are tested separately

Primary source: Shopify developer changelog.