humans.txt template
Years ago, I thought the whole humans.txt thing was just silly, and even explained how to block humans.txt requests. But the concept actually has grown on me to the point where I now include a customized humans.txt file for most of my projects. It just seems like some useful information to make available for those who are looking for it. You know, all about the site, author, team, and such. And I have seen plenty of requests for humans dot text in my log files, so it’s definitely worth the effort and something worth providing, especially now that more people are aware of them.
My humans.txt template
Here is a relatively complete humans.txt template that I can grab and customize as needed:
/* PROJECT */
Site Name: Perishable Press
Site URL: https://perishablepress.com/
Created: 2005/01/01
Standards: HTML5, CSS3
Components: jQuery
Software: WordPress
Plugins: Akismet, XML Sitemaps, Broken Link Checker, et al
Web Design: Jeff Starr @ Monzilla Media
/* AUTHOR */
Name: Jeff Starr
Nickname: Perishable
Title: CEO, Monzilla Media & Perishable Press Books
Location: Washington State
Site: https://monzillamedia.com/
Blog: https://perishablepress.com/
Contact: https://perishablepress.com/contact/
Donation: https://m0n.co/donate
/* SOCIAL */
About.me: https://about.me/jeffstarr
WordPress: https://profiles.wordpress.org/specialk/
Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/perishable
Twitter: https://twitter.com/perishable
Plugins: https://plugin-planet.com/
Themes: https://perishablepress.com/perishable-wordpress-themes/
Books: https://books.perishablepress.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jeff.m.starr
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/perishable/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU8j5aGOd8jhk-Hyj6ZF7gw
Tumblr: http://perishable.tumblr.com/
/* META */
Built with: WordPress, PHP, HTML, CSS, jQuery, JavaScript, SQL, .htaccess :)
/* THANKS */
To everyone who shares, likes, comments, and contributes!One thing I enjoy about writing humans.txt files is the flexible structure.. I mean, you can add anything you want: names, URLs, even ASCII art, if you’re bold enough. It’s also a good way of keeping track of the state of your portfolio at the time when the site was created. For example, I recently updated the humans infos across my domains, and realized how much had changed in the interim; it was like a virtual walk down memory lane, er, sort of.
2 responses to “humans.txt template”
Hey, Jeff. Was there anything else involved in changing your mind on this, or was it simply the log files? I’ve always been curious if people actually looked for humans.txt files or if there were apps or services that did?
Also, it was my understanding that it was generally a bad idea to reveal the plugins installed in a site, given that the information can be used to find plugins that may have known security holes.
The information revealed in the log files shows that there are both people and bots requesting humans.txt. What they actually do with the information is anyone’s guess, but I think the four or five minutes it takes to add the file is worth the potential benefit of increasing awareness and understanding of the project, author, brand, etc.
Letting people know which plugins you are running is only a security risk if you are running outdated/insecure plugins, which you shouldn’t be doing. Even so, I understand the concern and would advise anyone who thinks it may be a risk to simply not include that particular information.