VitePress: vendor profile

In short

VitePress pre-renders each Markdown page to HTML and writes a root 404.html that, since version 1.2.1, renders on the client and holds almost no text. llms.txt and .md copies come from a community plugin, not core. vitepress.dev answered Accept: text/markdown with HTML on 2026-11-05.

At a glance

standards.txt vitepress

llms-txt               = partial
markdown-negotiation   = no statement
markdown-twin          = partial
initial-html           = supports
real-404               = supports
vary-accept            = no statement

2 supports, 2 partial or announced, 2 no statement.

VitePress Framework

Vite and Vue static site generator that pre-renders each Markdown page to HTML and writes a root 404.html; sitemap.xml needs a hostname, and llms.txt or .md twins come only from the community vitepress-plugin-llms.

Type: Framework
Operator, as the facts below state it: Vue.js project (vuejs organization on GitHub)
Home page: vitepress.dev, answered HTTP 200 on 2026-11-05
Last read: 5 November 2026

What it does for this layer

VitePress takes Markdown source, applies a theme and writes static HTML pages, so page text is in the HTML file an agent fetches. [primary source] source, read 5 November 2026.
On a first visit VitePress serves the pre-rendered HTML, then loads a JavaScript bundle that hydrates the page into a Vue single page app for later navigation. [primary source] source, read 5 November 2026.
The VitePress deploy guide says 404.html is generated for the root depth only, and hosts that serve that file for deep missing URLs render it without styles. [primary source] source, read 5 November 2026.
VitePress 1.2.1 (2024-05-21) changed the 404 page to render completely on the client so the locale can be read from the browser path, which keeps its 404.html nearly empty of text. [primary source, 2024-05-21] source, read 5 November 2026.
VitePress writes sitemap.xml only after sitemap.hostname is set in .vitepress/config, and adds lastmod tags when the lastUpdated option is on. [primary source] source, read 5 November 2026.
The VitePress default theme gets fuzzy full-text search from an in-browser MiniSearch index when themeConfig.search.provider is 'local'; Algolia DocSearch is the hosted alternative. [primary source] source, read 5 November 2026.
The experimental mpa option builds a VitePress site in MPA mode, shipping 0 kB of JavaScript by default and dropping client-side navigation. [primary source] source, read 5 November 2026.
VitePress has no structured data setting; its transformHead build hook returns extra head tags per page, which is where a site would add JSON-LD. [primary source] source, read 5 November 2026.
With the cleanUrls option VitePress generates links without the .html extension, which needs a host that serves /foo.html for /foo. [primary source] source, read 5 November 2026.
The config of vitepress.dev imports the community package vitepress-plugin-llms and calls llmstxt with workDir 'en' only in production builds. [primary source] source, read 5 November 2026.
vitepress.dev served a text/markdown twin at /guide/getting-started.md (6,275 bytes) on 2026-11-05, yet the same page requested with Accept: text/markdown came back as 56,191 bytes of HTML with only Vary: Accept-Encoding. [observed] source, read 5 November 2026.
The VitePress changelog dates 2.0.0-alpha.21 to 2026-10-25, a pre-release that adds asset sharding and native RTL support in the theme. [primary source, 2026-10-25] source, read 5 November 2026.
VitePress ships under the MIT License with copyright held by Yuxi (Evan) You since 2019. [primary source] source, read 5 November 2026.

Test build

A default VitePress 1.6.4 site (npm add -D vitepress@1.6.4, npx vitepress init with every default, npm run docs:build) built on 2026-11-05 held 404.html and three page files but no llms.txt, robots.txt or sitemap.xml. [observed] source, read 5 November 2026.
Under vitepress preview that 1.6.4 build kept the hero H1 'My Awesome Project' in the server HTML, answered a made-up path with 404, and returned text/html to Accept: text/markdown. [observed] source, read 5 November 2026.

Products and plans

Plans and prices as the vendor's own pages showed them on the date read.
Product	What it is	Price	As of	Source
VitePress	Static site generator and default docs theme built on Vite and Vue.	Free, open source MIT licence, free; 1.6.4 is the stable line and 2.0 is in alpha	2026-11-05	source

Standards

The six standards this site tracks; no statement means the pages read said nothing.
Standard	Status	What the vendor's pages say	Source
llms-txt	partial	Core VitePress has no llms.txt option; the vitepress.dev config adds it with the community vitepress-plugin-llms package in production builds.	source
markdown-negotiation	no statement	No statement found in the VitePress guide, site config or deploy pages; vitepress.dev returned HTML to Accept: text/markdown on 2026-11-05.	none
markdown-twin	partial	vitepress.dev serves .md twins produced by vitepress-plugin-llms, which its own docs config imports; a default VitePress build writes none.	source
initial-html	supports	VitePress says the initial visit to any page is served the static, pre-rendered HTML.	source
real-404	supports	The deploy guide documents a generated 404.html and nginx error_page 404 /404.html rules; the preview server returned 404 for a made-up path.	source
vary-accept	no statement	No statement found in the VitePress site config, routing or deploy pages; VitePress does not negotiate, and vitepress.dev sent only Vary: Accept-Encoding.	none

Checks on its own site

Readings of vitepress.dev, the vendor's own website, which describe that site and not the product.
Reading	Result	Date
Home page request	HTTP 200; H1 in the initial HTML: yes; 99 words; 0 JSON-LD blocks	2026-11-05
Request with Accept: text/markdown	HTTP 200, text/html, Vary: Accept-Encoding	2026-11-05
/llms.txt at the host root	HTTP 200, text/plain, 4.9 KB, starts with an H1	2026-11-05
A made-up path	HTTP 404	2026-11-05
Ora score, cached	40, grade D	2026-09-02
Cloudflare keyless scan	27, L2 Bot-Aware	2026-11-05

What it does not do

VitePress core writes no llms.txt and no .md copy of a page; vitepress.dev gets both from the separately maintained vitepress-plugin-llms.

Related pages on this site

Sources

VitePress: home page https://vitepress.dev/, read 5 November 2026
What is VitePress? | VitePress https://vitepress.dev/guide/what-is-vitepress, read 5 November 2026
Deploy Your VitePress Site | VitePress https://vitepress.dev/guide/deploy, read 5 November 2026
VitePress CHANGELOG.md (main branch) https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vuejs/vitepress/main/CHANGELOG.md, read 5 November 2026
Sitemap Generation | VitePress https://vitepress.dev/guide/sitemap-generation, read 5 November 2026
Search | VitePress https://vitepress.dev/reference/default-theme-search, read 5 November 2026
Site Config | VitePress https://vitepress.dev/reference/site-config, read 5 November 2026
Routing | VitePress https://vitepress.dev/guide/routing, read 5 November 2026
vitepress.dev site config (docs/.vitepress/config.ts) https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vuejs/vitepress/main/docs/.vitepress/config.ts, read 5 November 2026
Getting Started | VitePress https://vitepress.dev/guide/getting-started, read 5 November 2026
VitePress LICENSE https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vuejs/vitepress/main/LICENSE, read 5 November 2026

Last reviewed 5 November 2026