LLM Markdown Actions

Carbon ships with built-in LLM-friendly documentation support powered by vitepress-plugin-llms.

On every documentation page, the theme adds a GitHub-style Markdown dropdown in the header. It can:

• copy the current page as Markdown
• download the current page as Markdown
• open the site-wide llms.txt
• open the site-wide llms-full.txt

How it works

Carbon enables the plugin from the base theme config, so extending vitepress-carbon/config is enough to generate:

• page-level Markdown mirrors like /guide/getting-started.md
• /llms.txt
• /llms-full.txt

The built-in dropdown reads those generated files directly, so the UI is not just decorative - it uses the real plugin output.

Default behavior

The dropdown is enabled by default on documentation pages.

import { defineConfigWithTheme } from 'vitepress'
import baseConfig from 'vitepress-carbon/config'
import type { ThemeConfig } from 'vitepress-carbon'

export default defineConfigWithTheme<ThemeConfig>({
  extends: baseConfig
})

Disable it

You can turn off the page action dropdown entirely:

export default defineConfigWithTheme<ThemeConfig>({
  extends: baseConfig,
  themeConfig: {
    llms: {
      pageActions: false
    }
  }
})

You can also keep the page copy/download actions and hide only the site-wide links:

export default defineConfigWithTheme<ThemeConfig>({
  extends: baseConfig,
  themeConfig: {
    llms: {
      siteWideLinks: false
    }
  }
})

Customize labels and paths

The built-in UI is controlled through themeConfig.llms.

export default defineConfigWithTheme<ThemeConfig>({
  extends: baseConfig,
  themeConfig: {
    llms: {
      actionLabel: 'AI Docs',
      copyLabel: 'Copy Markdown',
      downloadLabel: 'Download Markdown',
      copiedLabel: 'Copied',
      llmsTxtLabel: 'Open llms.txt',
      llmsFullTxtLabel: 'Open llms-full.txt',
      pagePattern: '/:path.md'
    }
  }
})

Available options

Option	Default	Purpose
pageActions	true	Show or hide the dropdown on doc pages
siteWideLinks	true	Show or hide llms.txt and llms-full.txt links
actionLabel	'Markdown'	Dropdown trigger text
copyLabel	'Copy as Markdown'	Copy action label
downloadLabel	'Download as Markdown'	Download action label
copiedLabel	'Copied'	Temporary success label after copy
llmsTxtLabel	'Open llms.txt'	Site-wide summary link label
llmsFullTxtLabel	'Open llms-full.txt'	Full bundle link label
pagePattern	'/:path.md'	Path used for each generated page mirror

Notes about plugin configuration

Carbon uses the plugin with its standard defaults, which means per-page Markdown files, llms.txt, and llms-full.txt are generated automatically.

If you need advanced generator options from the plugin itself, check the upstream plugin docs:

• Plugin README
• npm package

Suggestions from the plugin author

These recommendations come from the plugin author and are worth following when you want better LLM results.

Prefer English docs for LLM output

The plugin author recommends generating LLM docs from English documentation only.

Add description frontmatter

Add description to important pages so llms.txt becomes more informative.

---
description: How to configure Carbon for custom branding.
---

That extra context is used in the generated link list.

Use `

### Use `` for human-only content

Use `<llm-exclude>` when you want content to stay visible in the normal docs but disappear from the generated LLM files.

```md
<llm-exclude>
This marketing note is useful for readers, but not for LLM context.

Why Carbon uses this plugin

The plugin gives Carbon a functional, standards-aligned LLM export layer while the theme handles the GitHub-style interface and UX.

That combination gives you:

• real generated Markdown files
• a polished built-in dropdown
• page-level and site-level LLM entry points
• zero extra setup for the common case