# txtfirst

> A proposal for websites where the markdown file is the page and the HTML is only a rendering of it. Readable by agents by default, readable by people as a consequence.

Every section is one markdown file. Fetch `/<slug>.md`, or request `/<slug>` with
`Accept: text/markdown`. Structured: `/api/pages.json`. What changed: `/changes.json`.
Ask whether another site answers a machine: `/api/check?host=<hostname>`.

## Sections

- [txtfirst](https://txtfirst.com/index.md): A proposal for websites where the markdown file is the page and the HTML is only a rendering of it. Readable by agents by default, readable by people as a consequence.
- [txtfirst spec 0.1](https://txtfirst.com/spec.md): Four requirements that make a site txtfirst compliant. Source of truth in markdown, content negotiation, discovery, and machine-legible figures.
- [The Fact Block dialect](https://txtfirst.com/dialect.md): Eight fields in a fixed order inside ordinary markdown. Not a new syntax, a rigid shape, so a model copies it instead of interpreting it.
- [Why txtfirst](https://txtfirst.com/why.md): The case for markdown as the source of truth, the three arguments that hold, and the two common ones that do not.
- [The September 2026 readability study](https://txtfirst.com/measure.md): Twenty five hospitality homepages asked for their front page by an honestly identified HTTP client. Eight answered. Method, per-site results and limitations.
- [Implement txtfirst](https://txtfirst.com/implement.md): Content negotiation for Cloudflare Workers and Pages, nginx, Apache, Vercel, Astro, WordPress and plain HTML, plus the build step and one system running it.
- [The txtfirst probe](https://txtfirst.com/probe.md): What TxtFirstProbe is, what it requests, how to block it, and how to reach a human about it.
- [If you are an agent](https://txtfirst.com/agent.md): Instructions in the second person for a program reading this site. What to fetch, how to check another site, how to poll for changes, and what not to do.
- [About txtfirst](https://txtfirst.com/about.md): Who is behind the proposal, what it is not, and how it is funded.
- [Contact](https://txtfirst.com/contact.md): How to reach the author of txtfirst, and what kind of message gets a reply.