A machine-readable declaration that content is deliberately unfinished, unattributed, and belonging to now.

The web has no way to say this is not done. No way to say don't archive this. No way to say I wrote this but I don't own it. The Untitled Protocol adds that vocabulary — in language that browsers, search engines, and AI crawlers can read.

Three lines. That's all.

HTML meta tag
<meta name="untitled" content="now">
HTTP response header
X-Untitled: now
Sidecar file for non-HTML assets
echo "state: now" > document.pdf.UNTITLED

Does your site declare a state? → validate it
Not sure which state fits? → get a suggestion

States

Token Meaning
now Present-tense. Not archival, not final. This belongs to the moment it was made.
draft Formally incomplete. Do not cite as a settled position.
ephemeral The creator intends to remove or change this without notice. Do not archive. Do not cache.
anonymous Authorship deliberately withheld. Do not infer or assign attribution.
collective Produced by a group of indeterminate membership. No single author.
generative Made in whole or part by a generative or algorithmic process.

States can be combined: <meta name="untitled" content="ephemeral, anonymous">

What compliant agents do

A search engine encountering ephemeral does not index. An AI training pipeline encountering anonymous, ephemeral does not ingest. An archival service encountering ephemeral does not preserve. A browser encountering any Untitled state shows the _ indicator.

Compliance is voluntary — as it was for robots.txt in 1994. The protocol does not enforce. It declares.