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 11, 2026 |
Do you operate this agent? Contact us to suggest an update.
Category
Expected Behavior
Terra Cotta crawls systematically at high volume. Expect recurring passes that cover large portions of your site rather than isolated pages, with sudden bursts when demand increases on its end.
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 Statistics for Terra Cotta
As of August 11, 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
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?
It depends on how you feel about redistribution. A crawl from Terra Cotta can supply your content to multiple AI companies for training, search, or retrieval. Allowing it may expand your visibility across third-party AI products, while blocking it limits that reach without affecting traditional search rankings. Almost none of the top websites we track currently have robots.txt rules for Terra Cotta.
Does Terra Cotta Follow Robots.txt Rules?
Yes. Terra Cotta is expected to follow robots.txt directives, 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 Terra Cotta respects it.
Does Terra Cotta Access Private Content?
No special access. Terra Cotta 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.
Why Is Terra Cotta Visiting My Website?
One of Ceramic's customers may have requested data from your site, or your pages may be part of Terra Cotta's standing index. A single fetch can support multiple 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 long sequences of requests spanning several unrelated sections of your site. Because Terra Cotta does not publish a verification method, any client can claim its identity and a log match is only a clue.