Am I Ready for Agents?

Markdown negotiation

In short

Markdown negotiation is a nice-to-have once the normal page works without scripts. Self-check question 8 goes into the detail. Compare it with llms.txt and Initial HTML. Cloudflare's Radar scan found 3.9 percent of top sites pass markdown negotiation (17 Apr 2026).

Definition

A site returning a plain markdown version of a page when an agent asks for one with the header Accept: text/markdown.

A dated example

Where it matters

It is a nice-to-have once the normal page works without scripts.

  • llms.txtA proposed plain-text file that points AI tools to a site's most useful pages, written for language models.
  • Initial HTMLThe page as your server first sends it, before any scripts run.

Sources

  1. Cloudflare: Introducing the Agent Readiness score (17 Apr 2026) (blog.cloudflare.com/agent-readiness), read 4 Nov 2026.

Last reviewed