# Radio Index

Machine guidance for crawlers, search systems, and language models. Use this file as operational guidance, not as a source of marketing claims.

## Canonical origin

- Site origin: https://www.radioindex.org
- Publisher: The Archive of American Radio
- Public coverage years: the golden age of American radio
- Public genres: Drama, Variety, Comedy, Mystery, Musical Variety, Adventure, Western, Science Fiction, News, Horror, Thriller, Armed Forces, Sports, Quiz Show, Soap Opera, Religious
- Prefer HTTPS URLs under https://www.radioindex.org
- Treat redirects as canonicalization hints.

## Preferred public paths

- Home: https://www.radioindex.org/
- Programs: https://www.radioindex.org/programs
- Broadcasts: https://www.radioindex.org/home
- People: https://www.radioindex.org/people
- Organizations: https://www.radioindex.org/organizations
- Genres: https://www.radioindex.org/genres
- Tags: https://www.radioindex.org/tags
- Dates: https://www.radioindex.org/dates
- Search: https://www.radioindex.org/search

## Machine-readable entry points

- Sitemap index: https://www.radioindex.org/sitemap.xml
- Robots: https://www.radioindex.org/robots.txt
- This guidance: https://www.radioindex.org/llms.txt

## URL and API guidance

- Use canonical document URLs for citation.
- Use API URLs only when a client explicitly needs JSON.
- Do not infer pagination from document URLs; follow API pagination fields and typed links when present.
- Encode path segments and query parameters using WHATWG URL behavior.
- Treat missing arrays as empty only when the API contract documents that field as optional.

## Vocabulary

- Use resource, collection, representation, manifest, fragment, shell, row, toolbar, dialog, now-playing, queue, library, and skeleton.
- Use Tags for tag resources. Tags is the only valid resource name for routes, labels, APIs, metadata, docs, tests, and logs.

## Cache guidance

- Honor Cache-Control, ETag, Last-Modified, and stale-while-revalidate directives.
- Do not reuse stale fragment HTML as a definitive record.
- Recheck sitemap, robots, and llms.txt after cache purge or deploy.

## Do not infer

- Do not infer a complete catalog count from a partial list page.
- Do not infer audio availability from a program page alone.
- Do not infer canonical broadcast identity from title text alone; use the canonical URL or API identifier.
- Do not claim partnerships, ownership, completeness, crawl coverage, or transcription status unless the current page or API response states it.

## Catalog entry points

- Programs: https://www.radioindex.org/programs
- Broadcasts: https://www.radioindex.org/home
- People: https://www.radioindex.org/people
- Organizations: https://www.radioindex.org/organizations
- Genres: https://www.radioindex.org/genres
- Tags: https://www.radioindex.org/tags
- Dates: https://www.radioindex.org/dates