Licensing & Trademark

How the AI Discovery Files specification, its examples, schemas, and name may be used.

Last updated: 10 May 2026

This page is the single source of truth for licensing and trademark questions about the AI Discovery Files specification. It applies to the canonical specification published at www.ai-visibility.org.uk/specifications/ and to the formal specification document at github.com/BSolveIT/ai-discovery-files.

1. Specification text and examples — CC BY 4.0

The text of every specification page, the canonical examples in /specifications/examples/, the conventions and processing guidance, and all explanatory prose are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0).

You may copy, redistribute, adapt, and build on the specification text for any purpose, including commercial use, provided you give appropriate credit, link back to the licence, and indicate if changes were made.

Suggested attribution:

Based on the AI Discovery Files specification (www.ai-visibility.org.uk), licensed under CC BY 4.0.

2. JSON Schemas — MIT

The JSON Schemas published as part of the specification (currently ai-json.schema.json, identity-json.schema.json, and any subsequent schemas published under /specifications/<spec>/) are licensed under the MIT licence.

Schemas have a different licensing intent from prose: they are intended to be embedded directly in publishers' files, validators, and tooling without attribution friction. MIT permits unrestricted reuse with only a copyright notice retained.

3. Specification data files (JSON / YAML)

The machine-readable data files distributed alongside each specification (*-specification.json, *-specification.yaml, and the master ai-visibility-definition.json / .yaml) describe the specification itself in machine-parseable form. These files are licensed under CC BY 4.0, consistent with the specification text they describe.

4. The phrase "AI Discovery Files"

The phrase "AI Discovery Files" is descriptive. It is not a registered trademark, and there are no plans to file one. Anyone may use the phrase to refer to this specification, to files that conform to it, to tools that produce or consume such files, or to any related concept.

This explicit non-claim exists so that implementers, authors, journalists, educators, and researchers can use the phrase freely without uncertainty about ownership. The intent is to encourage adoption of consistent terminology across the ecosystem, not to gatekeep it.

Accurate reference is encouraged. Use the phrase to mean what this specification means.

5. Individual file names

The names of the individual AI Discovery Files (llms.txt, llm.txt, llms.html, ai.txt, ai.json, identity.json, brand.txt, faq-ai.txt, developer-ai.txt, robots-ai.txt) have no proprietary status with respect to this specification. Where a name (such as llms.txt) originates in an existing community convention, this specification refers to and extends that convention; see the spec page for each file for relationship details.

6. AI Visibility Directory verification badges

The verification badges issued by the AI Visibility Directory are restricted assets. They are issued only to websites that have been tested by the reference implementation (the AI Visibility Checker) and pass at the corresponding conformance class.

Badges may not be self-applied, copied to other sites, or used to imply conformance that has not been independently verified. The Directory may revoke a site's badge if a re-check fails or if the site materially changes in a way that breaks conformance.

Conformance class definitions and badge designs are documented separately on the conformance page (forthcoming as part of Phase 2 of the spec standardisation work).

7. Reference implementation names

The names "AI Visibility Checker" and "AI Visibility Directory" refer to specific implementations operated by 365i. These are product names, not parts of the open specification. They are used in this specification only to identify the reference implementations of validator and registry behaviour respectively.

Anyone may build alternative validators and registries; the specification, conformance classes, test vectors, and validator-output schema are designed so that conformant alternatives can be built and recognised. Such alternatives may use the phrase "AI Discovery Files" freely (per section 4) but should choose their own product names.

8. Contributions to the specification

Contributions to the specification (via pull requests, issues, or proposals on the spec repository) are accepted under the same licence terms as the specification itself: prose under CC BY 4.0, schemas under MIT.

By submitting a contribution you confirm you have the right to do so and that you license your contribution accordingly.

9. No warranty

The specification, examples, schemas, and tooling are provided "as is" without warranty of any kind. The CC BY 4.0 and MIT licences disclaim warranties; this section is a plain-English reminder, not an additional disclaimer.

Implementers are responsible for verifying that their implementations are correct, secure, and appropriate for their use case.

10. Changes to this page

Material changes to licensing or trademark policy will be announced in the changelog with a clear effective date. Existing users of the specification at the time of any change continue to operate under the licence terms in effect at the time of their use.

11. Contact

Licensing and trademark questions can be sent via the support page.