llms.txt: shortcodes in `website.title` are not evaluated

[mcanouil]

Bug description

Shortcodes used in website.title are rendered correctly in HTML output but appear as raw shortcode syntax in the generated llms.txt index file.

Steps to reproduce

quarto create project website issue-llms
cd issue-llms

Edit _quarto.yml to add llms-txt: true and use a shortcode in the title:

project:
  type: website

website:
  llms-txt: true
  title: "issue-llms {{< env DEMO >}}"
  navbar:
    left:
      - href: index.qmd
        text: Home
      - about.qmd

format:
  html:
    theme: cosmo
    css: styles.css
    toc: true

Create _environment with:

DEMO="test"

Then render and inspect llms.txt:

quarto render
cat _site/llms.txt

Actual behaviour

llms.txt contains:

# issue-llms {{< env DEMO >}}

Expected behaviour

llms.txt contains:

# issue-llms test

quarto check output

Quarto 99.9.9
[✓] Checking environment information...
      Quarto cache location: /Users/mcanouil/Library/Caches/quarto
[✓] Checking versions of quarto binary dependencies...
      Pandoc version 3.8.3: OK
      Dart Sass version 1.87.0: OK
      Deno version 2.4.5: OK
      Typst version 0.14.2: OK
[✓] Checking versions of quarto dependencies......OK
[✓] Checking Quarto installation......OK
      Version: 99.9.9
      commit: a70895e1c55c4ab7b221d1f27db3f628b0078f71
      Path: /Users/mcanouil/Projects/quarto-dev/quarto-cli/package/dist/bin
[✓] Checking tools....................OK
      TinyTeX: v2026.02
[✓] Checking LaTeX....................OK
      Using: TinyTex
      Path: /Users/mcanouil/Library/TinyTeX/bin/universal-darwin
      Version: 2025
[✓] Checking basic markdown render....OK

[gordonwoodhull]

Fixing this out of curiosity.

[cscheid]

@gordonwoodhull You'll need to set up a place to send that information through our "markdown envelope" or "pipeline". shortcodes are evaluated in Lua, and I think website.title otherwise doesn't go through that path. It's the same mechanism we use to evaluate shortcodes in sidebars

[gordonwoodhull]

This is more complicated than it appears!

[gordonwoodhull]

Argh, it is possible through mutating metadata state skulduggery.

The usual cross-stage communication problem.

Will file PR.