Legible
Proxy-Free Setup

Legible Proxy-Free Setup: Guide for Shopify, Squarespace & More

Set up Legible without Cloudflare proxying on platforms like Shopify, Squarespace, and Webflow. Learn DNS, discovery tags, verification, and troubleshooting for AI content.

8 min readUpdated 2026-03-21Getting Started
Why this matters

Proxy-free mode lets your existing site stay exactly where it is while Legible serves AI-readable content from a hosted endpoint such as `read.yourdomain.com`.

AI crawlers discover that hosted content through server-rendered tags in your HTML head, plus hosted `llms.txt` and `ai-sitemap.json` endpoints.

When To Use Proxy-Free Mode

Use proxy-free mode when you cannot put the domain behind Cloudflare proxying and you cannot edit NGINX, Apache, or another reverse proxy. This is common on Shopify, Squarespace, Webflow, Wix, and managed WordPress hosting.

Proxy mode is still the preferred path when you control the edge, because it enables same-URL content negotiation and response headers directly on your main domain.

  • Choose proxy-free when you need a separate hosted Markdown endpoint.
  • Choose proxy mode when you want same-URL `Accept: text/markdown` behavior.
  • Both paths still let Legible generate structured AI-readable content from your existing site.

What Legible Creates For You

  • A hosted `llms.txt` file for AI systems to discover important content.
  • A hosted `ai-sitemap.json` for machine-readable coverage beyond XML sitemaps.
  • Hosted Markdown pages such as `https://read.yourdomain.com/your-page-slug.md`.
  • Generated discovery tags for your site's global head and page templates.
  • Verification checks for DNS, hosted endpoints, sample Markdown, and origin discovery tags.

DNS Setup

Create a DNS `CNAME` so your hosted AI endpoint resolves to Legible. In the default setup, the hostname is `read.yourdomain.com`.

  • Wait for DNS propagation before verifying in Legible.
  • Keep the record DNS-only if your provider offers a proxy toggle and Legible instructs you to leave it off.
  • If you cannot use a custom subdomain, Legible can fall back to a Legible-managed hostname.
Type:   CNAME
Name:   read
Value:  edge.getlegible.com

Discovery Tags

Legible generates global tags that belong on every page plus a per-page Markdown `alternate` tag that belongs on article or content templates.

  • Render these tags in raw HTML whenever possible.
  • Do not depend on client-side JavaScript injection as your primary crawler-discovery path.
  • Put the page-level Markdown tag only on templates where a real content slug exists.
<link rel="ai-index" type="text/plain" href="https://read.yourdomain.com/llms.txt" />
<meta name="legible:ai-content-base" content="https://read.yourdomain.com/" />
<meta name="legible:ai-sitemap" content="https://read.yourdomain.com/ai-sitemap.json" />
<link rel="alternate" type="text/markdown" href="https://read.yourdomain.com/{{slug}}.md" />

Verification Checklist

  • Open `https://read.yourdomain.com/llms.txt` and confirm it loads.
  • Open `https://read.yourdomain.com/ai-sitemap.json` and confirm it loads.
  • Open a sample Markdown URL and confirm it returns clean content.
  • View the raw source of a main-domain page and confirm the discovery tags are present in the `<head>`.
  • Check the `Proxy-Free Discovery` section in Legible and make sure hosted and origin checks are green.

Common Failure Modes

  • Hosted endpoints are live, but discovery tags are missing from the main site source.
  • The Markdown `alternate` tag uses the wrong slug or handle.
  • DNS is pointed at Legible but has not propagated yet.
  • A CMS app or optimization layer rewrites the head and strips custom tags.