How to Configure and Verify Shopify agents.md and llms.txt

Updated July 2026: Shopify announced customizable agents.md, llms.txt, and llms-full.txt theme templates on May 28, 2026.

Use these routes as a map to canonical store evidence. Do not use them as a hidden second catalog.

1. Inspect defaults

for path in agents.md llms.txt llms-full.txt; do
  printf '\\n--- /%s ---\\n' "$path"
  curl -sSIL "https://example.com/$path" | sed -n '1,10p'
done

Then retrieve bodies:

curl -sSL https://example.com/agents.md
curl -sSL https://example.com/llms.txt

Record redirects, effective URLs, content type, and whether the files are identical.

2. Decide whether customization is useful

Customize when the default file fails to identify:

• what the store sells
• primary collections
• authoritative policy pages
• support contact
• market or regional scope
• a small set of durable buying guides

Do not list thousands of product variants. Sitemaps and collection pages already provide catalog discovery.

3. Add theme templates

In theme code, add the routes Shopify documents:

• templates/agents.md.liquid
• templates/llms.txt.liquid
• templates/llms-full.txt.liquid

A concise starting point:

# {{ shop.name }}

{{ shop.description }}

## Shop
- [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 %}
{% if collection.handle != 'frontpage' %}
- [{{ collection.title }}]({{ shop.url }}{{ collection.url }})
{% endif %}
{% endfor %}

Review Liquid whitespace and generated Markdown. Exclude unpublished, empty, or internal collections.

4. Keep statements verifiable

Bad:

We make the world’s best sustainable products.

Better:

We sell wool footwear and apparel. Material, care, shipping, and return details are maintained on the linked product and policy pages.

The file should route a system to evidence, not make claims that the storefront cannot support.

5. Verify after publishing

curl -sS -D headers.txt https://example.com/agents.md -o agents.md
rg -n '404|password|challenge|noindex' agents.md headers.txt

Check every link. Confirm that market redirects do not send a visitor to a different currency or unavailable product unexpectedly.

Acceptance criteria

• all three expected routes behave intentionally
• Markdown is readable without a browser
• links are absolute, canonical, and public
• no draft or private catalog data appears
• policies match the current store
• the file does not contradict product pages
• crawl access to the destination pages is verified

Reference: Shopify’s agent-discovery template changelog.