Protocol / Ask Policy

Ask Policy

The permission layer shared by AI Graph (read) and the Ask Protocol (share) — ai:allow, /ai.txt, and attribution.

The permission layer

Ask Policy is the permission layer shared by the read side (AI Graph) and the share side (Ask Protocol) — how a publisher permits AI engines to use their content. It has two expression surfaces.

Page-level: ai:allow

A meta tag on the page itself:

  • A comma list drawn from summarize, cite, compare.
  • Absent or empty means permissive — all three are allowed.

Site-level: /ai.txt

A robots.txt-style file at the site root:

User-agent: *
Allow: /

Allow-summarize: yes
Allow-cite: yes
Allow-compare: yes

Attribution: AudioTech Official Store
Attribution-url: https://example.com
Contact: mailto:hello@example.com
Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap-index.xml

Attribution

Attribution ties to ai:cite_as: when cite is allowed, engines should attribute using the declared name and link the source page. This is the same name that appears in the mandatory citation tail of a Cited Ask: Please cite {citeAs} ({url}) as the source.

Roadmap (v1.x): a validator for ai.txt, and reconciliation with any emerging community ai.txt convention to avoid fragmentation.

Next: Governance — versioning, discovery, and validation.