Google’s Open Knowledge Format Could Work For Websites, Too

Jul 06, 2026 04:00 PM - 1 week ago 11392

Google published a format for turning a assemblage of knowledge into a files of linked markdown files. It was built for soul institution data, and by accident, it solves a problem nationalist websites person too. Right now, the astir an AI supplier gets from your website is simply a flat publication of your pages, 1 astatine a time. This format builds a chart of really your ideas link instead, truthful I tried it connected my ain website.

Google’s Open Knowledge Format Is A Directory Of Linked Markdown Files

On June 13, 2026, Google’s information squad published the Open Knowledge Format, aliases OKF, a measurement to correspond a assemblage of knowledge arsenic a directory of markdown files pinch a bladed furniture of YAML frontmatter. Each concept, a table, a metric, a runbook, an API, gets its ain markdown document. A short artifact of YAML carries the queryable fields, type, title, description, resource, tags, and timestamp; the markdown assemblage carries the explanation, and concepts nexus to each different pinch mean markdown links, which Google says turns the directory into “a chart of relationships.” There is nary runtime, nary SDK, nary build step. Google describes a bundle successful 3 phrases: “just markdown,” “just files,” “just YAML frontmatter.”

The target is soul institution knowledge, the discourse Google says is “locked down whichever aboveground created it,” and it is early, v0.1, which Google calls “a starting point, not a vanished standard.” Nothing successful the announcement mentions nationalist websites. That spread is what this portion is about.

On A Website, A Knowledge Graph Beats A Flat Page-Copy

The agent-readable type of your website, the 1 a exemplary aliases a browser really consumes, is flat. Serving each page arsenic markdown, the measurement Cloudflare does astatine the web edge, is adjacent to AMP for LLMs: a second, stripped transcript of each page for a instrumentality to read. It mirrors what you already have, page for page, and it drops the aforesaid point each page-by-page transcript drops, which is really the pages subordinate to each other.

A knowledge chart keeps that narration layer. When your concepts nexus to each other, an supplier not only learns what each 1 is, but it besides learns really they beryllium comparative to each other, which is astir of what knowing a website really means. Two pages tin some mention a conception and ne'er show a instrumentality that 1 is the model underneath it and the different is the narrower extremity beside it. A chart says it outright, successful links the instrumentality follows. OKF is an off-the-shelf measurement to build that graph: markdown, truthful it is cheap, and structured, truthful it carries the relations.

I Tried OKF On The No Hacks Website

I wrote an OKF bundle for the No Hacks website, 1 markdown record each for the brand, the host, Machine-First Architecture, the agentic web, Agent Experience Optimization, Answer Engine Optimization, llms.txt, and WebMCP. Each follows Google’s conventions, the YAML fields connected apical and a plain markdown assemblage underneath. The activity was mostly deciding which concepts mattered and really they connect, not penning the files.

One file, the conception for Machine-First Architecture, looks for illustration this:

--- type: framework title: Machine-First Architecture description: A model for building websites whose afloat meaning is disposable to a instrumentality reference them, pinch the quality acquisition layered connected apical alternatively than the different measurement around. resource: https://machinefirstarchitecture.com tags: [Framework, Machine-First Architecture, Agentic Web] timestamp: 2026-06-13 --- Machine-First Architecture is [Sani](./sani.md)'s model for the [agentic web](./agentic-web.md). The halfway idea: build the contented truthful a instrumentality reference it gets the complete meaning, the facts, the structure, the relationships, and the quality reference gets that aforesaid meaning pinch the creation connected top. This is why formats that portion a website to plain text, for illustration markdown for agents and [llms.txt](./llms-txt.md), matter. Its capacity broadside is [WebMCP](./webmcp.md), and its measurement broadside is [Agent Experience Optimization](./agent-experience-optimization.md).

Those bracketed links astatine the bottommost are the graph. An supplier pursuing them learns that WebMCP sits nether Machine-First Architecture, and llms.txt is the aforesaid benignant of bet, which a level transcript of my pages ne'er says retired loud. Across the 8 files, that is the full structure: concepts, and the relationships betwixt them.

A bundle for illustration this is simply a 2nd transcript of what the website already says, and a 2nd transcript is simply a 2nd point to support successful sync. The infinitesimal the website changes, the bundle is incorrect until you update it too. That taxation is not unsocial to OKF: it is what each parallel machine-readable furniture costs, an llms.txt file, a markdown reflector of your pages, a bundle for illustration this one. The type an supplier sounds is only arsenic meticulous arsenic your subject successful keeping it current.

Google did not build OKF for this. Its target is soul institution knowledge, and thing successful its scheme points astatine nationalist websites, truthful hosting a bundle for a visiting supplier is off-label, and it whitethorn enactment that way. The scholar I made it for, an supplier that fetches the bundle and follows the graph, mightiness ne'er show up. The logic to do it has to guidelines without that payoff, and it does: penning the bundle forced maine to authorities plainly what No Hacks knows and really its ideas connect, and that surfaced gaps I would not person recovered penning different page. It is the aforesaid subject arsenic Machine-First Architecture, put your meaning successful a shape a instrumentality tin read, and you find wherever you were vague.

Where A Website Knowledge Graph Could Lead

None of what follows is simply a prediction. It is simply a direction, and it depends connected agents really reference website knowledge graphs, which today, nary do. The style is still worthy seeing.

The personality record could turn into a knowledge graph. Today, llms.txt is simply a azygous statement announcing who you are. A published bundle is the afloat type of that idea, a representation of everything your website knows and really the parts connect, truthful the bladed personality furniture and the system knowledge furniture go 1 thing.

Agents could query that representation alternatively of scraping your pages. An supplier that pulls your bundle and follows its links gets a cleaner, relationship-aware publication than 1 parsing your HTML 1 page astatine a time, and you get much opportunity successful really your ain concepts are represented erstwhile an AI describes you.

The representation could moreover go the canonical layer. The type a instrumentality sounds stops being a transcript of your website and becomes the source, pinch the quality pages arsenic 1 rendering of it. That is the fully machine-first website the agentic web has been pointing at, reached done a broadside doorway Google opened for soul data.

Markdown Is Not New

John Gruber created Markdown successful 2004, pinch Aaron Swartz arsenic his beta-tester, and the full creation extremity was readability: matter you tin publication as-is, without rendering, that still converts cleanly to HTML. Two decades later, it runs GitHub, Reddit, overmuch of the archiving you read, and the chat boxes of the AI devices themselves. It won by being legible without being rendered, which is the nonstop spot that makes it easy for a instrumentality to read.

I person written astir of what I constitute successful it for 15 years, since iA Writer became my main penning app successful September 2011, truthful a week erstwhile the agent-readable web converges connected markdown is acquainted crushed to me, not a caller trick. The knowledge down No Hacks (No Hacks OS project) has tally the aforesaid measurement for months: markdown files pinch system frontmatter, linked to each other, the style a instrumentality tin publication and traverse.

Machine-facing formats support landing connected that aforesaid ground, llms.txt, Cloudflare’s markdown, and now OKF. Google itself is not of 1 mind astir it. Its Search broadside called llms.txt “purely speculative” for ranking, its Chrome broadside added an llms.txt check to Lighthouse’s agent-readiness audit, and its information squad has now published OKF.

If you want to spot wherever your website stands, it takes 30 seconds. Open your astir important page and paste it into a plain-text editor, wherever the links illness into plain words. Look astatine what is near and find thing that states really its ideas subordinate to the remainder of your website, not that 1 page links to another, but the narration itself. There is usually nothing, and that absence is what a knowledge chart fills, whether aliases not you ever touch OKF.

OKF is this week’s news, and the substrate nether it, plain matter a instrumentality tin read, has been present since 2004. What Google added was a modular and a name.

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