Content negotiation
In short
The HTTP mechanism where the client states preferred formats in the Accept header and the server picks a representation for the same URL. Example: Vercel serves its blog as markdown when a request sends Accept: text/markdown. Related terms: Accept header, Markdown negotiation, Markdown twin, Vary: Accept, Content-Signal.
Source of the example
The example in the summary above is from vercel.com, read 4 November 2026.
Where it shows up on this site
Neighbouring terms
- Accept header: The request header that lists media types a client will take, with optional q weights.
- Markdown negotiation: Content negotiation where Accept: text/markdown returns the page as markdown with Content-Type text/markdown.
- Markdown twin: A markdown copy of a page at a predictable URL, such as page.md or page.html.md.
- Vary: Accept: A response header telling caches that the body depends on the Accept header, so HTML and markdown are stored separately.
- Content-Signal: A declaration of permitted AI uses (ai-train, search, ai-input), sent as a robots.txt line or a response header.
Sources
- vercel.com https://vercel.com/blog/making-agent-friendly-pages-with-content-negotiation, read 4 November 2026
Last reviewed 4 November 2026