ChatGPT-User

OpenAI · User-initiated fetcher

ChatGPT-User is OpenAI’s user-initiated fetcher — it fetches a page live because a human asked the assistant about it right now. Most vendors state this tier ignores robots.txt, reasoning that a human requested the specific page.

User-agent string

Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko); compatible; ChatGPT-User/1.0; +https://openai.com/bot

Source: vendor-documented at developers.openai.com/api/docs/bots.

Does ChatGPT-User respect robots.txt?

OpenAI’s exact wording: “Because these actions are initiated by a user, robots.txt rules may not apply.”

Allow or block ChatGPT-User

# Allow (recommended if you want ChatGPT-User traffic)
User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Allow: /

# Block
User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Disallow: /

Advisory only for this tier: OpenAI’s documentation says this fetcher may not honor robots.txt (see above). For a firm block, filter by verified IP ranges or use a WAF rule.

Verifying it’s really ChatGPT-User

OpenAI publishes IP ranges at openai.com/chatgpt-user.json. User-agent strings can be spoofed by anyone — identity claims are only trustworthy when the source IP matches the operator’s published ranges.

What site owners should know

Fires when a ChatGPT user asks about your site or pastes your URL. Since robots.txt may not bind it, server-side controls (WAF rules, IP filtering) are the only firm technical block — and blocking it hides you from users at their moment of highest intent.

Scan your site to see how your robots.txt, content negotiation, and discovery files treat AI agents — including whether you’re blocking agents you meant to allow. Background: the robots.txt guide and agent readiness.

All AI agent user-agents

ClaudeBot · Claude-User · Claude-SearchBot · GPTBot · OAI-SearchBot · ChatGPT-User · PerplexityBot · Perplexity-User · Google-Extended · Google-Agent · Meta-ExternalAgent