# Accept:text/markdown

> A reference site and toolset for serving Markdown to AI agents via HTTP content negotiation using the Accept: text/markdown header.

Accept:text/markdown is a free reference site built by Ben Word (@retlehs) that teaches developers how to implement spec-correct HTTP content negotiation so their web pages serve clean Markdown to AI agents while continuing to serve HTML to browsers — all from the same canonical URL. The site covers the full negotiation contract: representation selection, cache correctness, and unsatisfiable request handling, going beyond the common pattern of simply publishing `.md` sibling files.

## What It Is

Accept:text/markdown is a narrow implementation reference for the `Accept: text/markdown` HTTP header pattern defined by RFC 7763 and RFC 9110. When an AI agent or LLM client sends a request with `Accept: text/markdown`, a correctly configured server responds with a Markdown representation of the page instead of HTML. Browsers, which don't send that header, continue to receive the normal HTML response. The site provides guides, copy-paste recipes for popular stacks, a live URL readiness checker, and an agent support matrix tracking which AI agents actually send the header.

## Why Markdown for AI Agents

The site articulates three concrete reasons to serve Markdown over HTML to AI clients:

- **Tokens**: Markdown strips nav, styles, scripts, and layout wrappers, so agents spend context window budget on prose rather than DOM noise.
- **Retrieval signal**: Removing ads, related-content rails, and modal overlays raises the signal-to-noise ratio for RAG pipelines that embed the text.
- **Latency**: Less to fetch, less to parse, and less to stuff into the context window before the model starts generating.

## Guides and Recipes

The site separates protocol guidance from stack-specific implementation. Guides cover fundamentals such as what content negotiation is, why Markdown matters for AI agents, how to parse `Accept` headers and q-values correctly, when to return `406 Not Acceptable`, and how to configure `Vary: Accept` for CDNs including Cloudflare, Fastly, and Vercel. Recipes provide copy-paste configurations for Nginx, Caddy, WordPress, Discourse, Laravel, Rails, Cloudflare Workers, Next.js, Astro, Apache, SvelteKit, Nuxt/Nitro, Express, Go, and Django. A Cloudflare-specific shortcut is also documented: sites behind Cloudflare can enable Markdown negotiation at the edge with no origin changes required.

## Readiness Checker and Agent Status Matrix

The homepage includes a live URL probe that makes a real request from the edge with `Accept: text/markdown` and scores the origin on four criteria: whether it serves Markdown for the header, sets `Vary: Accept`, rejects unsupported types with `406`, and honors q-values. Results can be shared or downloaded as a scorecard image. A separate Status page tracks which AI agents currently send `Accept: text/markdown` when their browse or fetch tools hit a URL — the site notes that most agents do not yet send the header.

## Production Proof and Scope

The site validates the pattern against a live production implementation at roots.io, covering the full negotiation path including `Accept` matching, `Vary: Accept`, canonical-URL Markdown delivery, and `406` behavior. The about page explicitly states this is not a generic AI SEO site but a narrow implementation reference for serving Markdown and HTML representations from one URL correctly.

## Features
- HTTP content negotiation for Markdown and HTML from a single URL
- Live URL readiness checker with edge-side probing
- Scored readiness criteria: Markdown serving, Vary header, 406 handling, q-value support
- Shareable and downloadable scorecard images
- AI agent support matrix tracking Accept: text/markdown adoption
- Guides on Accept header parsing, q-values, Vary, 406, and CDN caching
- Copy-paste recipes for Nginx, Caddy, WordPress, Discourse, Laravel, Rails, Cloudflare Workers, Next.js, Astro, Apache, SvelteKit, Nuxt/Nitro, Express, Go, Django
- Cloudflare edge Markdown negotiation guide (zero origin changes)
- Standards references: RFC 7763, RFC 8288, RFC 9110

## Integrations
Cloudflare Workers, Cloudflare CDN, Nginx, Caddy, Apache, WordPress, Discourse, Laravel, Rails, Next.js, Astro, SvelteKit, Nuxt/Nitro, Express, Go, Django, Fastly, Vercel

## Platforms
WEB, CLI

## Pricing
Free

## Links
- Website: https://acceptmarkdown.com
- Documentation: https://acceptmarkdown.com/guides
- EveryDev.ai: https://www.everydev.ai/tools/accept-text-markdown