What is TerraCotta?
TerraCotta 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
TerraCotta 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.
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 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: TerraCotta # https://knownagents.com/agents/terracotta
Disallow: /Global Statistics for TerraCotta
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
2% of top websites block TerraCotta 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 TerraCotta.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I Block TerraCotta?
It depends on how you feel about redistribution. A crawl from TerraCotta 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. For context, 2% 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 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 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.
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 AI applications.
How Can I Tell if TerraCotta Is Visiting My Website?
Agent Analytics tracks TerraCotta 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 "TerraCotta". Look for long sequences of requests spanning several unrelated sections of your site. Because TerraCotta does not publish a verification method, any client can claim its identity and a log match is only a clue.