Allow or block Cloudflare-AutoRAG on Shopify: robots.txt.liquid, step by step

Add a robots.txt.liquid template to the theme (Online Store → Themes → ⋯ → Edit code → Add a new template → robots) and put a “User-agent: Cloudflare-AutoRAG” group with “Disallow: /” below the default rules.

This response

You are ClaudeBot (Anthropic). Citable recognised you as an AI agent, so this is https://getcitable.in/crawlers/cloudflare-autorag/shopify with the UI removed — the content only. A browser asking for the same address gets the full designed page.

Cloudflare-AutoRAG, and where Shopify keeps the rule

Cloudflare-AutoRAG is a crawler run by Cloudflare. It reads pages ahead of time, to train a model or to build an index.

Shopify generates robots.txt for every store. It is changed by adding a robots.txt.liquid template to the theme; there is no file to upload.

Step by step

What to paste

A group that names a crawler replaces the * group for that crawler; it does not add to it. Paths the * group closes are open to a crawler with its own group unless they are repeated there.

Refuse Cloudflare-AutoRAG:

User-agent: Cloudflare-AutoRAG
Disallow: /

Allow Cloudflare-AutoRAG:

User-agent: Cloudflare-AutoRAG
Allow: /

What trips people up

The template lives in the theme. Publish a different theme and the rule goes with the old one, unless the new theme has the same template.

Asked, or actually refused?

Shopify gives a site owner robots.txt and nothing stronger: there is no setting that refuses a request by its user agent. robots.txt is a request. A crawler that honours it stays out; nothing in the file stops one that does not. What is enforced is what the server or the edge in front of it refuses.

Check it yourself

A 200 means the name is let through; a 403 means something in front of the page refuses it. This tests the name from your own address. A platform that checks a crawler’s address as well may treat the real Cloudflare-AutoRAG differently.

The request:

curl -I -A "Cloudflare-AutoRAG" https://your-site.example/

Questions

How do I block Cloudflare-AutoRAG on Shopify?

Add a robots.txt.liquid template to the theme (Online Store → Themes → ⋯ → Edit code → Add a new template → robots) and put a “User-agent: Cloudflare-AutoRAG” group with “Disallow: /” below the default rules.

How do I allow Cloudflare-AutoRAG on Shopify?

A crawler that robots.txt does not name follows the * group, so Cloudflare-AutoRAG needs no rule to be allowed. To allow it by name, add the Allow block.

Can Shopify actually stop Cloudflare-AutoRAG, or only ask it?

Shopify gives a site owner robots.txt and nothing stronger: there is no setting that refuses a request by its user agent. robots.txt is a request. A crawler that honours it stays out; nothing in the file stops one that does not. What is enforced is what the server or the edge in front of it refuses.

Does a rule for Cloudflare-AutoRAG affect Googlebot or my Google rankings?

No. Googlebot goes by its own name and follows its own rules; a group or a firewall rule for Cloudflare-AutoRAG does not apply to it.

Checked against Shopify's own documentation on 1 October 2026

Related

About Citable

Citable strips the UI from a website for AI agents and serves them only the content.

When an AI agent — ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity or any of the 81 that Citable recognises — opens a page, Citable removes the theme, scripts, navigation and layout and serves only the content: the same facts, at the same URL, on the site's own domain. People and Google still get the full designed page.

How it works: https://getcitable.in/how-it-works · Summary for AI agents: https://getcitable.in/llms.txt


Source: https://getcitable.in/crawlers/cloudflare-autorag/shopify · Citable · Run the free audit · llms.txt · getcitable@gmail.com