DNS-AID

DNS-AID is an informal label used for the idea of DNS-based AI discovery. As of this review, it is not an adopted IETF standard, a registered DNS record type, or a discovery mechanism that major AI providers publicly require.

This is not yet a widely adopted web standard. Treat it as an agent-readiness pattern, not as a guaranteed ranking factor.

How It Could Work

A private experiment might publish a DNS TXT record that advertises a discovery endpoint:

_ai.example.com TXT "aid=https://example.com/.well-known/ai-discovery.json"

This example is illustrative; the _ai label and aid= key are not registered conventions. A client would have to implement the same private agreement before the record had any effect.

Design constraints

• TXT records have practical size, quoting, and fragmentation constraints.
• DNS responses are cached according to TTL, so policy changes are not immediate.
• DNSSEC can authenticate DNS data, but it does not make the linked HTTPS document trustworthy by itself.
• A record exposes information publicly and may be collected by passive DNS systems.
• Multiple discovery documents can drift and create contradictory instructions.

SEO Guidance

Use DNS-AID only as a supporting signal. If you adopt it, keep the linked discovery document consistent with:

• robots.txt
• sitemap.xml
• llms.txt
• HTTP Link headers
• public API documentation

Avoid putting sensitive URLs or secrets in DNS. DNS is public infrastructure.

Prefer established discovery first

Before adding an experimental DNS signal, make the canonical website and API surfaces work:

1. Use crawlable HTML, robots.txt, sitemaps, canonical URLs, and clear navigation for public content.
2. Use standardized well-known resources where a protocol defines them.
3. Advertise typed resources with HTTP Link headers only when a consumer is known to understand the relation.
4. Publish an OpenAPI document or official protocol metadata for callable APIs.
5. Document ownership, version, TTL, rollback, and a consumer test for any DNS experiment.

Acceptance test

Do not ship a DNS-AID record merely because it resolves. Name the consuming client, capture a successful discovery trace, verify DNSSEC and HTTPS behavior where required, and test stale-cache and endpoint-failure cases. If no real client consumes it, the record is documentation overhead rather than an agent-readiness feature.

Related Concepts

• Link Headers for AI Agents
• Agent Skills Index
• API Catalog SEO
• llms.txt

Official Resources

There is no broadly accepted official DNS-AID specification yet. The stable foundations are:

• RFC 1035: Domain Names - Implementation and Specification
• RFC 8615: Well-Known URIs