OpenNav AI
Search finds pages. OpenNav makes websites usable.
AI agents are becoming a new class of web visitor, but the web still gives them a human interface: visual layouts, changing HTML, navigation chrome, and pages that hide the readable path inside presentation code.
That makes agent work slower, more expensive, and less reliable. OpenNav fixes the missing layer between discovery and execution: a predictable interface that lets agents discover, navigate, read, and respect a site without treating every page like a one-off scraping job.
The Agent Navigation Layer
Section titled “The Agent Navigation Layer”Search engines find the page. Browser agents can open it. APIs help when a site already built one.
OpenNav owns the compatibility layer after discovery: the part where an agent needs to know what exists, where to go, what to read, and which access preferences the site published.
The goal is simple: agents should expect OpenNav, and websites should support it as a standard part of being usable on the agent web.
Use It Today: Static Sites
Section titled “Use It Today: Static Sites”The first OpenNav release starts with static output because it gives teams an immediate, inspectable win. Add one build step, deploy the same folder, and your site gains an agent-readable layer beside the HTML people already use.
Point OpenNav at a finished folder such as dist/, out/, build/, or
site/. Your source files, hosting provider, CDN, and human-facing pages stay
in charge. OpenNav changes only the built output folder.
OpenNav works with documentation sites, marketing sites, and exported apps that produce real HTML or Markdown files. It fits deploys to Cloudflare Pages, Netlify, Vercel static output, GitHub Pages, S3-compatible hosting, and any CDN that serves plain files.
Cloudflare Pages Teams
Section titled “Cloudflare Pages Teams”Cloudflare Pages is the clearest place to make a site agent-ready today. Pages already deploys a finished static folder, and OpenNav can run as the final build step before that folder ships.
If you are exploring Workers, AI Gateway, or agent access patterns around a
Cloudflare site, start with the static layer first: publish llms.txt, Markdown
page mirrors, /.well-known/opennav.json, and optional Content Signals guidance
with the same deploy. On Cloudflare Pages, platform: "cloudflare-pages" or
--platform cloudflare-pages also creates _headers by default so those
generated files ship with explicit response content types and HTML routes expose
HTTP Link headers for Markdown alternates and llms.txt.
| Cloudflare path | Start here |
|---|---|
| Pages with any static output folder | Use the Cloudflare guide for Pages setup. |
| Pages with Astro | Use the Astro guide to run OpenNav after astro build. |
| Pages with Next.js static export | Use the Next.js guide for output: "export". |
| Workers or AI Gateway experiments | Ship the static OpenNav files now, then follow the server-side roadmap for runtime Markdown responses. |
| Before OpenNav | After OpenNav |
|---|---|
| Agents load visual HTML and guess which content matters. | Agents discover readable entrypoints from llms.txt and page links. |
| Agents spend tokens parsing navigation, chrome, scripts, and layout. | Agents read Markdown page mirrors focused on the page content. |
| Tools infer site support from conventions or brittle scraping. | Tools can inspect /.well-known/opennav.json for generated artifact paths and compatibility metadata. |
| Content-use preferences live outside the build flow. | Optional robots.txt Content Signals guidance can ship with the same deploy. |
The OpenNav Standard
Section titled “The OpenNav Standard”The first OpenNav profile publishes predictable files and resource links that let agents discover, read, and respect a site without scraping the visual HTML.
| File or edit | What agents can use it for |
|---|---|
llms.txt | Discover the readable site index. |
llms-full.txt | Read combined page content, capped at complete page blocks when needed. |
*.md page artifacts | Read page content without parsing visual HTML. |
/.well-known/opennav.json | Check static compatibility metadata and generated artifact paths. |
| HTML resource links | Discover Markdown mirrors and llms.txt from each page. |
robots.txt guidance | Read configured Content Signals preferences when provided. |
_headers | Use Cloudflare Pages response headers when platform: "cloudflare-pages" is configured. |
Pick Your Hook
Section titled “Pick Your Hook”| Hook | Use it when | Start here |
|---|---|---|
| TypeScript SDK | You already know the built output folder. | SDK Reference |
| Astro | You want OpenNav to run after astro build. | Astro Guide |
| Next.js | You use Next.js static export. | Next.js Guide |
| CLI | You want a build-step command. | CLI Reference |
| Cloudflare | You deploy to Cloudflare Pages, Workers static assets, or are testing AI Gateway agent access. | Cloudflare Guide |
| Static site platforms | You deploy a finished folder to Netlify, Vercel static output, GitHub Pages, S3-compatible hosting, or a CDN. | Static Site Platforms |
| Server-side Astro and Next.js | You want runtime Markdown content negotiation. Fast-follow open-source track. | Server-Side Roadmap |
What OpenNav Does Not Do
Section titled “What OpenNav Does Not Do”OpenNav is not a search engine, a RAG database, or a replacement API. Search can still find the page; OpenNav gives agents a better way to use the page once they arrive.
OpenNav does not call an LLM, crawl the public internet, edit your source project, publish your site, or enforce crawler behavior. Your existing build and hosting workflow stays in control.
Static Site Platforms
Section titled “Static Site Platforms”The static workflow is deployment-platform agnostic. OpenNav reads the generated HTML, writes agent-readable files beside it, and leaves your hosting stack to serve the result.
| Path | Supported now | Best fit |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | Any finished static output folder. | Existing build scripts and CI pipelines. |
| TypeScript SDK | Direct static output folder control. | Custom Node scripts and build hooks. |
| Astro helper | Astro static builds. | astro build projects that publish dist/. |
| Next.js helper | Next.js static export builds. | output: "export" projects that publish out/. |
Server-Side Roadmap
Section titled “Server-Side Roadmap”The static profile is the first step toward the broader OpenNav standard: websites exposing a predictable interface that agents can discover before they spend tokens reading whole pages.
Server-side Astro and Next.js support is the next open-source track. This is the future of agent-ready websites: runtime routes that serve HTML to people and Markdown to agents from the same URL, with site-wide middleware and per-endpoint controls for apps that cannot export every route first.
See the server-side roadmap for the planned Astro and Next.js runtime integrations.