Serving markdown to agents

An HTML page is built for a browser, and an agent that reads it pays for all the markup, scripts, and layout it does not need. Serving a markdown version of the same page gives an agent the content without the wrapper, which is both cheaper and less error-prone.

The mechanism is content negotiation. An agent sends an Accept header asking for text/markdown, and the server returns the markdown form of the page at the same URL. A site can also publish llms-full.txt, a single file that bundles the whole site as text, so an agent can read everything in one request instead of fetching many pages.

The saving is large. On turva.dev the markdown form of a page costs a small fraction of the tokens the HTML would, and the difference decides whether an agent reads a page in full or truncates it halfway. A model that runs out of budget on markup is a model that answers from a partial reading.

Markdown delivery is not a separate site, it is the same content offered in a second form. The page stays as it is for people, and an agent that asks for text gets text. Paired with a clear llms.txt that lists where the content lives, it makes a site fast and reliable to read at machine speed.

turva.dev serves markdown on request and publishes llms.txt and llms-full.txt. For an audit of a site's content surface for agents, contact info@turva.dev.