What is Terra Cotta?
Terra Cotta is Ceramic's web crawler that indexes public content to power their web-scale search API for AI and LLMs. Agent Analytics can track when it visits your website.
Overview
| Operated By | Ceramic |
| Source | Official Website |
| Expected To Follow Robots.txt | Yes |
| Insights Last Updated | August 3, 2026 |
Do you operate this agent? Contact us to suggest an update.
Category
Expected Behavior
Terra Cotta crawls systematically and at volume, because it feeds an index that many AI customers query. Expect recurring visits that cover large parts of your site rather than single pages. Bursts often trace back to a customer request on its end rather than anything on yours.
Terra Cotta's User Agent
| User Agent | Terra Cotta 0.1 https://www.github.com/ceramicTeam/CeramicTerracotta |
How To Block Terra Cotta With Robots.txt
Add this rule to your robots.txt file to block Terra Cotta from accessing your entire website, or use Automatic Robots.txt to block all AI data providers at once. You can customize which pages are blocked by swapping out / for a different path.
User-agent: Terra Cotta # https://knownagents.com/agents/terra-cotta
Disallow: /Global Insights for Terra Cotta
As of August 3, 2026, this data reflects agent visits measured across thousands of websites using Agent Analytics, combined with daily scans of the world's top 1000 websites and their robots.txt files.
Robots.txt Blocked Percentage
Country of Origin
Robots.txt Blocking Trend
0% of top websites block Terra Cotta in their robots.txt files.
Overall AI Data Provider Traffic
0.3% of all web traffic came from AI data providers.
Top Visited Website Categories
The types of websites most frequently visited by Terra Cotta.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I Block Terra Cotta?
Decide how you feel about redistribution. A single crawl from Terra Cotta can supply your content to many AI companies for training, search, and retrieval, so allowing it spreads your content across products you have no relationship with. Blocking it costs some AI visibility and nothing in traditional search. Almost none of the top websites we track have robots.txt rules for Terra Cotta right now.
Does Terra Cotta Follow Robots.txt Rules?
Yes. Terra Cotta is expected to follow robots.txt rules, so a disallow rule is the right first move. Automatic Robots.txt adds and maintains that rule for you, and Agent Analytics confirms Terra Cotta actually follows it.
Does Terra Cotta Access Private Content?
Terra Cotta targets public pages, but at industrial scale. Some providers route requests through large proxy networks that sidestep rate limits and geographic blocks. Content you want kept out of AI systems is safer behind real authentication than behind soft barriers.
Why Is Terra Cotta Visiting My Website?
One of Ceramic's customers requested data your site contains, or your pages are part of Terra Cotta's standing index. A single fetch can end up serving many downstream AI applications.
How Can I Tell if Terra Cotta Is Visiting My Website?
Agent Analytics tracks Terra Cotta visits in real time alongside every other known AI agent, crawler, and scraper. You can also check your server logs for requests whose user agent string contains "Terra Cotta". Look for systematic crawling that returns on a schedule. Keep in mind that Terra Cotta doesn't publish a verification method, so any client can claim its user agent string and a log match is a hint rather than proof.