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humans.txt

humans.txt credits the people behind a site. It is tiny and optional, yet a current, dated file is a clear public sign that someone still owns the site.

Updated 29 September 2026·3 min read·Weight 5 of 100·Markdown

humans.txt is a plain-text file at /humans.txt that credits the people behind a site and records a few facts about how it is built and maintained. It follows the informal convention at humanstxt.org, has no RFC behind it, and no crawler depends on it. Flowpane treats it as a small signal of ownership: evidence that someone still knows who is responsible for the site.

What it is for

robots.txt is written for machines. humans.txt is written for the people who look: developers, prospective hires, auditors, partners doing due diligence. It answers a simple question. Who built this, and is anyone still looking after it?

That is why a tiny file carries signal. humans.txt is the cheapest governance file to keep true. A dated, current one shows a named team still attends to the details. One that names people who left years ago, or has never been updated since launch, shows a site running on autopilot, and readers draw the obvious conclusion about the files that matter more.

How it goes stale

  • The HTML fallback. Many frameworks and CMSs route unknown paths to a page template and return status 200. A request for /humans.txt gets the homepage or a styled not-found page. A naive check calls that present; it is not a humans.txt.
  • Departed credits. The TEAM section lists people who have moved on, with contact addresses that no longer reach anyone.
  • A frozen date. Last update still shows the launch date. Flowpane flags a Last update more than two years old.
  • An untouched template. Placeholder names and roles were published as they stood.

What true looks like

/* TEAM */
Name: Sam Taylor
Role: Head of web platform
Contact: web-team@example.com

/* SITE */
Last update: 2026/09/15
Language: English
Standards: HTML5, CSS3
  • Serve it as plain text with status 200. The body starts with your content, never <!DOCTYPE html>.
  • Update Last update whenever the file changes, in the conventional YYYY/MM/DD form.
  • Credit only people who have agreed to be named, and prefer a role address for contact.

How Flowpane checks it

Flowpane fetches /humans.txt over public HTTPS. It carries a weight of 5, the smallest in the site score.

  • Missing. Scores 0. humans.txt is always recommended and never required.
  • Empty. Scores 0. A file that exists but says nothing is a real defect.
  • HTML instead of text. Scores 0. Flowpane recognises a body that begins with an HTML document marker. The fix is a routing or static-file change, so Flowpane does not offer a text patch for it.
  • Conventions. Missing TEAM or SITE sections, a TEAM section without Name, or no Last update are Recommendations. Free-form credits remain valid.
  • Age. A Last update more than two years old is flagged for review.

Because humans.txt is recommended rather than required, it can never make a site unscorable or hold its score as pending. If it is blocked or has not yet been checked, it is left out of the weighting rather than counted against you. See How the score works for how each state is weighted.

For a missing file, Flowpane drafts a starter with placeholder TEAM fields and a SITE section carrying today's date and your site address. It never invents names or roles. The draft does not change the score: you publish through your own host or CMS, and the next public check reads the live file.

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