diff --git a/rewrite-yaml/src/main/java/org/openrewrite/yaml/CreateYamlFile.java b/rewrite-yaml/src/main/java/org/openrewrite/yaml/CreateYamlFile.java
index c926ab1859c..4d9309a8597 100644
--- a/rewrite-yaml/src/main/java/org/openrewrite/yaml/CreateYamlFile.java
+++ b/rewrite-yaml/src/main/java/org/openrewrite/yaml/CreateYamlFile.java
@@ -21,8 +21,10 @@
 import org.openrewrite.*;
 import org.openrewrite.internal.StringUtils;
 import org.openrewrite.internal.lang.Nullable;
+import org.openrewrite.remote.Remote;
 import org.openrewrite.yaml.tree.Yaml;
 
+import java.net.URI;
 import java.nio.file.Path;
 import java.nio.file.Paths;
 import java.util.Collection;
@@ -49,6 +51,13 @@ public class CreateYamlFile extends ScanningRecipe<AtomicBoolean> {
     @Nullable
     String fileContents;
 
+    @Option(displayName = "File contents URL",
+            description = "URL to file containing text content for the file. Use either `fileContents` or `fileContentsUrl` option.",
+            example = "http://foo.bar/baz.yaml",
+            required = false)
+    @Nullable
+    String fileContentsUrl;
+
     @Option(displayName = "Overwrite existing file",
             description = "If there is an existing file, should it be overwritten.",
             required = false)
@@ -92,14 +101,18 @@ public TreeVisitor<?, ExecutionContext> getVisitor(AtomicBoolean created) {
             @Override
             public Yaml visitDocuments(Yaml.Documents documents, ExecutionContext ctx) {
                 if ((created.get() || Boolean.TRUE.equals(overwriteExisting)) && path.equals(documents.getSourcePath())) {
-                    if (StringUtils.isBlank(fileContents)) {
+                    @Language("yml") String yamlContents = fileContents;
+                    if (yamlContents == null && fileContentsUrl != null) {
+                        yamlContents = Remote.builder(path, URI.create(fileContentsUrl)).build().printAll(ctx);
+                    }
+                    if (StringUtils.isBlank(yamlContents)) {
                         return documents.withDocuments(emptyList());
                     }
-                    if (documents.printAll().equals(fileContents)) {
+                    if (documents.printAll().equals(yamlContents)) {
                         return documents;
                     }
                     Optional<SourceFile> sourceFiles = YamlParser.builder().build()
-                            .parse(fileContents)
+                            .parse(yamlContents)
                             .findFirst();
                     if (sourceFiles.isPresent()) {
                         SourceFile sourceFile = sourceFiles.get();
diff --git a/rewrite-yaml/src/test/java/org/openrewrite/yaml/CreateYamlFileTest.java b/rewrite-yaml/src/test/java/org/openrewrite/yaml/CreateYamlFileTest.java
index 31868ca9692..d78f2cd0e25 100644
--- a/rewrite-yaml/src/test/java/org/openrewrite/yaml/CreateYamlFileTest.java
+++ b/rewrite-yaml/src/test/java/org/openrewrite/yaml/CreateYamlFileTest.java
@@ -15,10 +15,27 @@
  */
 package org.openrewrite.yaml;
 
+import org.intellij.lang.annotations.Language;
 import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;
 import org.openrewrite.DocumentExample;
+import org.openrewrite.HttpSenderExecutionContextView;
+import org.openrewrite.InMemoryExecutionContext;
+import org.openrewrite.internal.lang.Nullable;
+import org.openrewrite.remote.RemoteArtifactCache;
+import org.openrewrite.remote.RemoteExecutionContextView;
+import org.openrewrite.test.MockHttpSender;
 import org.openrewrite.test.RewriteTest;
 
+import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream;
+import java.io.File;
+import java.io.IOException;
+import java.io.InputStream;
+import java.net.URI;
+import java.nio.file.Files;
+import java.nio.file.Path;
+import java.nio.file.StandardCopyOption;
+import java.util.function.Consumer;
+
 import static org.openrewrite.yaml.Assertions.yaml;
 
 class CreateYamlFileTest implements RewriteTest {
@@ -35,6 +52,7 @@ void hasCreatedFile() {
           spec -> spec.recipe(new CreateYamlFile(
             "test/test.yaml",
             fileContents,
+            null,
             null
           )),
           yaml(
@@ -52,6 +70,7 @@ void hasOverwrittenFile() {
           spec -> spec.recipe(new CreateYamlFile(
             "test/test.yaml",
             "after: true",
+            null,
             true
           )),
           yaml(
@@ -68,6 +87,7 @@ void shouldNotChangeExistingFile() {
           spec -> spec.recipe(new CreateYamlFile(
             "test/test.yaml",
             null,
+            null,
             false
           )),
           yaml(
@@ -85,6 +105,7 @@ void shouldNotChangeExistingFileWhenOverwriteNull() {
           spec -> spec.recipe(new CreateYamlFile(
             "test/test.yaml",
             null,
+            null,
             null
           )),
           yaml(
@@ -100,6 +121,7 @@ void shouldAddAnotherFile() {
           spec -> spec.recipe(new CreateYamlFile(
             "test/test-file-2.yaml",
             null,
+            null,
             true
           )),
           yaml(
@@ -113,4 +135,77 @@ void shouldAddAnotherFile() {
           )
         );
     }
+
+    @Test
+    void shouldDownloadFileContents() {
+        @Language("yml")
+        String yamlContent = """
+          # This is a comment
+          foo: x
+          bar:
+            z: y
+          """;
+        InMemoryExecutionContext ctx = new InMemoryExecutionContext(e -> e.printStackTrace());
+        MockHttpSender httpSender = new MockHttpSender(() ->
+          new ByteArrayInputStream(yamlContent.getBytes()));
+        HttpSenderExecutionContextView.view(ctx)
+          .setHttpSender(httpSender)
+          .setLargeFileHttpSender(httpSender);
+        RemoteExecutionContextView.view(ctx).setArtifactCache(new RemoteArtifactCache() {
+            @Override
+            public @Nullable Path get(URI uri) {
+                return null;
+            }
+
+            @Override
+            public @Nullable Path put(URI uri, InputStream is, Consumer<Throwable> onError) {
+                try {
+                    var file = File.createTempFile("rewrite", "yaml");
+                    Files.copy(is, file.toPath(), StandardCopyOption.REPLACE_EXISTING);
+                    return file.toPath();
+                } catch (IOException e) {
+                    throw new RuntimeException(e);
+                }
+            }
+        });
+        rewriteRun(
+          spec -> spec
+            .executionContext(ctx)
+            .recipeExecutionContext(ctx)
+            .recipe(new CreateYamlFile(
+              "test/test.yaml",
+              null,
+              "http://fake.url/test.yaml",
+              true)
+            ),
+          yaml(
+            null,
+            yamlContent,
+            spec -> spec.path("test/test.yaml")
+          )
+        );
+    }
+
+    @Test
+    void shouldUseFileContentsWhenContentsAndContentsUrlNotNull() {
+        @Language("yml")
+        String fileContents = """
+          # This is a comment
+          x:
+            y: z
+          """;
+        rewriteRun(
+          spec -> spec.recipe(new CreateYamlFile(
+            "test/test.yaml",
+            fileContents,
+            "http://foo.bar/baz.yaml",
+            true)
+          ),
+          yaml(
+            null,
+            fileContents,
+            spec -> spec.path("test/test.yaml")
+          )
+        );
+    }
 }