What is TerraCotta?

TerraCotta is Ceramic's web crawler that indexes public content to power their web-scale search API for AI and LLMs. You can set up Agent Analytics to see when TerraCotta visits your website.

Overview

Operated By Ceramic
Source Official Website
Expected To Follow Robots.txt Yes
Insights Last Updated September 15, 2026

Do you operate this agent? Contact us to suggest an update.

Category

AI Data Provider
Crawls websites to supply structured content to AI systems as a third-party service

Expected Behavior

TerraCotta supports several kinds of automated activity, so its traffic pattern depends on the task. It may perform broad crawls to collect content or build an index, make targeted requests for specific pages, or shift between these behaviors as demand changes.

TerraCotta's User Agent

User Agent TerraCotta 0.2 https://www.github.com/ceramicTeam/CeramicTerracotta

How To Block TerraCotta With Robots.txt

Add this rule to your robots.txt file to block TerraCotta from accessing your 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: TerraCotta # https://knownagents.com/agents/terracotta
Disallow: /

Insights for TerraCotta

As of September 15, 2026, this data reflects agent visits measured across thousands of websites using Agent Analytics, combined with daily scans of the top 1000 websites and their robots.txt files.

Robots.txt Blocked Percentage

9%
9% of top websites are blocking TerraCotta
Learn How →

Country of Origin

United States
TerraCotta normally visits From the United States

Robots.txt Blocking Trend

9% of top websites block TerraCotta in their robots.txts.

Overall AI Data Provider Traffic

0.3% of all web traffic came from AI data providers.

Top Visited Website Categories

People and Society
Pets and Animals
Books and Literature
Hobbies and Leisure
Travel and Transportation

The types of websites most frequently visited by TerraCotta.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I Block TerraCotta?

It depends on which uses you want to support. TerraCotta may supply your content to enterprises, including AI companies, or use it in consumer-facing products. Those uses can include AI training, search, and retrieval. Allowing it may expand your visibility across those products and services, while blocking it limits that reach without affecting traditional search rankings. For context, 9% of the top websites we track currently have robots.txt rules for TerraCotta.


Does TerraCotta Follow Robots.txt Rules?

Yes. TerraCotta is expected to follow robots.txt rules, so a disallow rule is the appropriate first step. Automatic Robots.txt can add and maintain that rule, while Agent Analytics lets you verify whether TerraCotta respects it.


Does TerraCotta Access Private Content?

No special access. TerraCotta can reach public pages, and some providers use proxy networks that can bypass rate limits or geographic restrictions. Protect sensitive content with authentication rather than relying on those softer barriers.


How Can I Tell if TerraCotta Is Visiting My Website?

Agent Analytics tracks TerraCotta visits in real time. You can also check your server logs for requests whose user-agent string contains "TerraCotta". Traffic may range from long crawl sequences across your site to isolated requests for specific pages, depending on whether it is collecting, indexing, or fetching content on demand. Because TerraCotta does not publish a verification method, any client can claim its identity and a log match is only a clue.


Why Is TerraCotta Visiting My Website?

One of Ceramic's customers may have requested data from your site, or your pages may be part of TerraCotta's standing index. A single fetch can support multiple downstream applications.