1# Open Knowledge Format (OKF)
2 
3Google's v0.1 markdown spec for representing site content as an agent-readable bundle. Introduced on the [Google Cloud blog](https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/data-analytics/how-the-open-knowledge-format-can-improve-data-sharing) on 2026-06-12 and shipped inside Knowledge Catalog.
4 
5## What it is
6 
7OKF is a directory of cross-linked markdown files. Each file has:
8 
9- A YAML frontmatter block (`type` required; `title`, `description`, `resource`, `tags`, `timestamp` recommended)
10- A standard markdown body
11- Standard markdown links to other files in the bundle (which the spec treats as concept relationships)
12 
13An optional `index.md` lists the files for progressive disclosure. The bundle can be distributed as a git repo (recommended), a tarball/zip, or a subdirectory of a larger repo.
14 
15The [full spec](https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/knowledge-catalog/blob/HEAD/okf/SPEC.md) fits on one page. The repo lives under `GoogleCloudPlatform` (the "not an official Google product" disclaimer is Google's standard open-source boilerplate, not a denial — it appears on most of Google's open-source repos including their main AI samples repo).
16 
17### A minimal concept file
18 
19```markdown
20---
21type: Article
22title: How to Connect the Ahrefs MCP Server to Manus
23description: The official MCP servers, why they did not connect, and the fix.
24resource: https://yoursite.com/blog/ahrefs-mcp-manus/
25tags: [mcp, ahrefs]
26---
27 
28# How to Connect the Ahrefs MCP Server to Manus
29 
30The body of the post, as clean markdown.
31```
32 
33Add an `index.md` that lists all files so an agent can see the bundle's shape before opening each file, and that is the entire format.
34 
35## Honest framing
36 
37**Google built OKF for data teams sharing catalog metadata** — BigQuery tables, API endpoints, metrics, playbooks. Most of the spec's examples are data-team artifacts, not blog posts. Google's blog post framing: "improve data sharing" and "standardized documentation" for collaboration across teams.
38 
39Pointing OKF at a marketing site is a **clever repurposing** popularized by [Suganthan Mohanadasan](https://suganthan.com/blog/open-knowledge-format/). It's a legitimate use case for the format but not Google's primary one. Frame it accurately when explaining it to founders or marketing teams.
40 
41## What it does for AI search today
42 
43Nothing immediate. Nothing crawls the web for OKF bundles yet — the spec is weeks old, no AI engine has announced integration, and Knowledge Catalog ingests bundles only for paying enterprise customers' data teams.
44 
45Treat OKF as **protocol-layer registration** — the same shape of bet as early `schema.org` adoption was a decade ago. Schema took the better part of ten years to pay off; people who shipped it early are still glad they did.
46 
47A secondary benefit that pays off today regardless: **generating the bundle is itself an internal-linking audit**. Suganthan's tool draws every page as a node and every internal link as an edge, so islands and orphans become obvious at a glance.
48 
49## Where OKF fits in the agent-readable stack
50 
51| Layer | Purpose |
52|---|---|
53| `sitemap.xml` | Tells a crawler which URLs exist |
54| `robots.txt` (with AI bot rules) | Permits or blocks AI crawlers |
55| `llms.txt` | Points an agent at the handful of pages you most want read |
56| `/pricing.md` | Structured pricing for agent-buyer comparisons |
57| **`/okf/` bundle** | Hands over the content itself as cross-linked concepts |
58| Schema markup | Per-page structured data (Article, FAQPage, Product, etc.) |
59 
60These stack rather than compete. `llms.txt` is a signpost, OKF is the library.
61 
62## How to ship one
63 
64Three options, ordered by how much effort they take:
65 
66### 1. Suganthan's free web tool (recommended for most sites)
67 
68[suganthan.com/okf-generator](https://suganthan.com/okf-generator/) — paste a URL or sitemap, crawls up to 100 pages, returns a downloadable bundle. Also draws the resulting page graph so you can spot disconnected pages before publishing.
69 
70### 2. WordPress plugin (pending wp.org approval)
71 
72Suganthan's plugin (free, GPL, awaiting wp.org approval at time of writing) installs in a minute, serves the bundle at `/okf/`, and rebuilds on every publish or edit so it stays in sync. Direct download link is in [his blog post](https://suganthan.com/blog/open-knowledge-format/). Requires WordPress 6.0+ and PHP 7.4+. Read-only — never edits posts or settings.
73 
74### 3. By hand
75 
76Only practical for a handful of pages. Each post becomes a markdown file with frontmatter that you cross-link manually. Miserable for a whole site.
77 
78## Hosting & discovery
79 
80Serve the bundle at `yoursite.com/okf/`, starting with `yoursite.com/okf/index.md`:
81 
82- **Static hosts / Cloudflare**: drag and drop
83- **WordPress**: Suganthan's plugin handles the serving
84- **Static sites with custom paths**: upload the directory to `/okf/`
85- **Closed platforms (Wix, Squarespace, most page-builders)**: you usually can't serve files at custom paths — skip OKF entirely
86 
87After it's serving, add a line to `llms.txt` pointing to the bundle so agents that read `llms.txt` (today) can discover the bundle (later).
88 
89## When to skip
90 
91- Site is <10 pages — overhead exceeds payoff
92- Site is on a closed platform that won't allow custom paths
93- You're not maintaining `llms.txt`, schema markup, or other machine-readable files (OKF compounds with those; alone it does nothing)
94- You can't budget the 30 minutes a quarter to refresh the bundle as content changes
95 
96## What to watch
97 
98OKF is v0.1, weeks old. Worth tracking, not worth obsessing over:
99 
100- Whether Google announces OKF support in AI Overviews / Knowledge Graph (currently no signal)
101- Whether non-Google engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude) announce OKF reading
102- Whether the spec moves to v1.0 (breaking changes are possible at <1.0)
103- Whether Knowledge Catalog adds public ingestion endpoints
104- Adoption signals — search GitHub for `okf/index.md` to see who's shipping bundles
105