---
title: 'content-md - The web, spoken fluently to AI agents'
description: 'content-md is an open specification for optimized content exchange. Serve high-fidelity textual representation to AI agents through standard HTTP content negotiation.'
date: 2026-05-05
license: 'CC-BY-4.0'
---


# content-md — The web, spoken fluently to AI agents.

Open Specification · Draft

content-md is an open specification for high-fidelity textual representation for AI agents.

## Why content-md

AI agents can read HTML or complex formats. Time and tokens set the rules.

**Use tokens wisely.** Every token sent to an LLM is billed. A typical web page with navigation and layout markup can run to tens of thousands of tokens. This page weighs around 40 KB as HTML; as content-md, the same content fits in under 3 KB.

**The creator wins.** No scraper knows your content better than you do. Automatically converted HTML loses context, collapses structure, and makes wrong guesses. content-md is authored by the people who wrote the page.

## Ecosystem

Tools & plugins. These tools help you start serving content-md without building from scratch.

- **Caddy Content Negotiation**: Serve pre-existing markdown files via the Caddy web server with proper content negotiation headers built in. [avvertix/caddy-content-negotiation](https://github.com/avvertix/caddy-content-negotiation/)
- **WordPress Post to Markdown**: Serve post content as Markdown directly from Wordpress. [roots/post-content-to-markdown](https://github.com/roots/post-content-to-markdown)

## Comparison

### vs LLMs.txt

LLMs.txt covers the whole website: one URL listing everything available. They coexist like sitemaps and pages. content-md describes individual resources.

### vs Agents.md

Agents.md targets coding agents with README context for code repositories: build steps, tests, conventions. content-md does not target coding agents — the two serve entirely different purposes.

### vs Skills

Skills provides additional knowledge to agents, currently within dedicated folders. content-md responses are nearly compatible with Skills; the frontmatter fields map closely.


- [Reference — frontmatter fields and custom block syntax](/reference)
- [For Content Producers — best practices for writing content-md documents](/producers)
- [For Content Consumers — how to serve content-md from your server](/consumers)




- [Write content-md](https://contentmd.org/writers)
- [Read content-md](https://contentmd.org/consumers)
- [Reference](https://contentmd.org/reference)
- [GitHub ↗](https://github.com/OneOffTech/contentmd)