# Initial website discovery

This is informative setup guidance. It adds no wire requirement, policy field or new robots directive. The [policy core](POLICY-CORE.md) and [specification's trust and discovery rules](../SPECIFICATION.md#4-trust-and-discovery) remain the authoritative contracts.

## Publish the actual policy first

Publish the current native policy at your canonical HTTPS origin's `/odexa.json`, for example `https://example.com/odexa.json`, with HTTP 200 and `Content-Type: application/json`. The endpoint is credential-free, same-origin and accepts no redirect under this draft. Its declared origin, scopes, terms and validity must describe the website where it is served. A link to protocol documentation alone is not that website's policy.

An originator can publish a static policy without a Foundation account, provider or agreement service. Select static permissions deliberately using the policy core. A `require_agreement` rule needs an implemented service before a new agreement can be made; discovering the policy does not itself create one.

## Optional robots.txt comment

Preserve the site's existing `User-agent`, `Allow`, `Disallow`, `Sitemap` and other crawl configuration. Append an informational comment such as this, replacing `example.com` with the actual policy origin:

```text
# Odexa usage policy: https://example.com/odexa.json
```

If the `/llms.txt` file below has also been published, a second comment can point to it:

```text
# Guidance for agents: https://example.com/llms.txt
```

These are comments, not standard robot instructions. Ordinary robots parsers ignore them; agents that read the text may discover the links. Do not replace existing crawl restrictions with `Allow: /` to add Odexa, and do not treat a policy link as permission to ignore a crawl restriction. This guide does not define an `Odexa:` robots directive. Comments and extension-record handling are described in [RFC 9309 sections 2.2.3–2.2.4](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9309.html#section-2.2.3); that protocol expressly separates crawl rules from access authorization.

## Optional llms.txt

Publish a concise Markdown file at `/llms.txt`. The following example assumes the website's policy is already available at `https://example.com/odexa.json`. Replace the title, description and policy origin with the site's actual values; retain only links that exist.

```markdown
# Example website

> Information and usage-policy links for agents visiting this website.

## Usage policy

- [This website's Odexa policy](https://example.com/odexa.json): Current machine-readable scopes, terms and obligations.

## Documentation

- [Odexa documentation](https://odexa.io/): Protocol guidance and implementation documentation.
```

Additional links can point to the website's own published documentation or agent-friendly content. Keep policy rules in `/odexa.json` so this summary does not become a conflicting second policy. The [llms.txt proposal](https://llmstxt.org/) provides guidance and links for agents; it does not authenticate a party, appoint a provider or record assent.

## Advertise only implemented services

For a static policy deployment, leave `/odexa-service.json` out of these signposts. Add a link only after the corresponding service is implemented and its origin-owned authority document is published at that exact same-origin path. Merely naming a provider in robots comments, llms.txt or a documentation page does not delegate authority. Clients still obtain and validate the authoritative policy and service documents through the existing credential-free discovery and scoped-authority contracts.

The optional HTTP policy `Link` relation already described in the policy core can supplement these signposts. None of the hints overrides crawl rules, expands a policy's scope, accepts an agreement, creates a payment obligation or guarantees that a bot will read or comply with it. The Foundation and documentation are non-commercial and implementation-neutral; the same guidance applies to direct operation and any explicitly appointed provider.

The [current quickstart](CURRENT-QUICKSTART.md) covers running the reference service separately. Its commands do not generate or deploy these robots and llms.txt additions.