Build with AI

Set up your environment, choose tools, and build workflows for effective AI development.

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This guide explains how to enhance your development workflow by leveraging llms.txt and llms-full.txt with an AI assistant. You will learn how to provide foundational context and further refine AI's behavior with specific rules and instruction files.

llms.txt and llms-full.txt

Search engines weren't built for Large Language Models (LLMs), but they needs context. That's why we've created llms.txt and llms-full.txt for our documentation. These files follow the growing standard for LLMs consumption.

File	Purpose
llms.txt	Contains index of the docs page in Markdown, with links to all subpages in Markdown.
llms-full.txt	Contains a full dump of documentation in Markdown.

Use llms.txt and llms-full.txt

LLMs don't automatically discover llms.txt files, you need to add the link manually. Some tools like Cursor provide settings for this.

Cursor

Go to: Settings -> Cursor Settings -> Indexing & Docs -> Add Doc.

Now, you can just provide the link to Apify llms-full.txt:

https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt

Windsurf

Open Windsurf Cascade, and add context via @web:

Windsurf @docs

Windsurf provides the @docs command, but you cannot customize it. It means that you cannot add your own documentation.

GitHub Copilot

Open Copilot Chat mode, and add context via #fetch:

GitHub Copilot and documentation

Similar to Windsurf, GitHub Copilot does not provide an option for adding your own documentation.

Ask AI

New to Apify? Ask questions and provide the llms.txt link. Popular AI models can search the web. With the right context, you get better answers:

View pages as markdown

Every page in Apify documentation is available in markdown format. Simply add .md to any documentation URL to access the raw markdown content.

For example:

• https://docs.apify.com/platform → https://docs.apify.com/platform.md
• https://docs.apify.com/api → https://docs.apify.com/api.md

This is useful when you want to:

• Copy documentation content for AI prompts
• Reference exact markdown syntax
• Access content programmatically

Add rules

To get the most from AI Code Editors, add rules or instructions.

See how to set up rules for your AI Code Editors:

• Cursor Rules
• Windsurf Rules
• GitHub Copilot instructions

Apify rules and instructions

The best rules and instructions are specific for individual use cases, but we provide a prompt to help you get start with creating rules and instructions:

Use pre-built prompt to get started faster.

Keep your rules and instructions up to date

As the project evolves, you might introduce new things. Always make sure that your rules and instructions are up to date.

Best practices

• Small tasks: Don't ask AI for many tasks at once. Break complex problems into smaller pieces. Solve them step by step.

• Iterative approach: Work iteratively with clear steps. Start with a basic implementation and gradually add complexity.

• Versioning: Version your changes often using git. This lets you track changes, roll back if needed, and maintain a clear history.

• Security: Don't expose API keys, secrets, or sensitive information in your code or conversations with LLM assistants.