/knowledge-base

name: knowledge-base
description: "How to work in a Knowledge Base project (the `knowledge-base` starter pack). Read when the project has the three-layer source-grounded layout — `external-sources/` → `research/` → `articles/` — or when asked how this project is organized. Carries the layer model, per-folder rules, status flows, and log discipline so this guidance does NOT live inside template bodies or log.md. The three procedures live elsewhere: ingest in the platform `open-knowledge` skill, research and consolidate as their own sibling skills in this pack. Complements the platform `open-knowledge` skill; does not replace it."
compatibility: "Any agent host with the OpenKnowledge MCP server configured. Installed project-local by `ok seed --pack knowledge-base`."
type: Document
metadata:
  pack: "knowledge-base"
  author: "Inkeep"
  repository: "https://github.com/inkeep/open-knowledge-skills"

Knowledge Base pack — how to work here

This project uses the **source-grounded knowledge-base** layout. The whole point is a closed evidence loop: nothing canonical exists without a traceable chain back to a preserved source. This skill holds the workflow so the templates and `log.md` can stay clean — when you create a doc from a template you get structure, and the *how* lives here.

> This skill is pack guidance. The platform `/open-knowledge` skill (read/write/preview/linking/grounding rules) still governs every markdown operation — this layers the KB workflow on top.

Link at creation

The user watches your build live — the editor follows the file you're writing, and the knowledge graph assembles on screen as pages get linked. No view management on your part; just author well: every page carries its links from the moment it's written (at minimum the hub/index page and its most related siblings — an unlinked page is invisible in the graph), and related pages share a `cluster:` frontmatter value (e.g. `cluster: architecture`) so the graph's cluster coloring makes the map read at a glance.

The three layers

external-sources/   raw sources, saved verbatim     (produced by `ingest`)
      ↓ cite
research/           provisional analysis            (produced by `research`)
      ↓ promote
articles/           canonical, decided knowledge     (produced by `consolidate`)

The loop is **ingest → research → consolidate**, mapped to [Karpathy's three-layer knowledge-base pattern](https://gist.github.com/karpathy/442a6bf555914893e9891c11519de94f). Every downstream claim traces upstream to a preserved source. Cite local paths in `external-sources/`, never bare web URLs — the KB must survive link rot.

Karpathy's insight: "The tedious part of maintaining a knowledge base is not the reading or the thinking — it's the bookkeeping." Humans abandon wikis because maintenance costs exceed perceived value. These procedures exist so an agent can do the bookkeeping (fetching, summarizing, cross-linking, superseding) without fatigue. Skipping the cross-linking, supersedes chains, or raw-source preservation is what turns a useful wiki back into an abandoned one.

The three procedures

Each layer has a full, STOP-gated procedure, and each ships as its own skill so it loads only when the work calls for it. Execute the procedure yourself with the OK verbs — these are your **default move over a bare `write`** when the work fits a layer.

| Procedure | Where it lives | When | | --- | --- | --- | | ingest | Platform `/open-knowledge` skill (`references/ingest-and-sources.md`) — its Grounding rule depends on it everywhere, so it ships with every project, not just this pack. | Preserve a shared URL / PDF / file verbatim, OR you fetched a URL to ground a KB claim (binary sources preserved, not scraped). | | research | Sibling skill `/research-with-sources` | Investigate / compare / synthesize multiple sources → provisional article with `status: draft` + `sources:`. | | consolidate | Sibling skill `/consolidate-notes` | A decision was actually made → commit canonical source-of-truth with `status: stable` + a `supersedes:` chain. |

Typical day-2 flow: user shares a URL → **ingest** (preserve) → user asks "now research this" → **research** (provisional article, ingesting more sources as needed) → decision lands → **consolidate** (canonical article, supersedes the research).

**Don't chain silently.** After ingest, ask whether to proceed to research. After research, let the user decide whether the findings are ready to consolidate. Each procedure completes on its own terms — the user drives the transitions.

**Autonomy gates vs session-level autonomy.** A procedure's STOP gates (research's scoping gate, consolidate's decision-confirmation gate) are NOT overridden by session-level "work without stopping for clarifying questions" hints. Those hints cover trivial back-and-forth ("which file did you mean?"); the gates exist for one-way-door decisions. When in doubt, the gate is authoritative.

Per-folder rules

**`external-sources/`** — Raw sources saved verbatim, not just cited: the actual fetched text of URLs, extracted text of PDFs, copies of referenced files. Each file's frontmatter carries the original URL, access date, and any author/publisher metadata. Produced by the ingest procedure (applies whether the user shared the URL or you fetched it yourself to ground a claim). Immutable after capture — update only to refresh a stale fetch. **No analysis here**; that belongs in `research/`.

**`research/`** — Provisional analysis synthesizing external sources, stored as OKF `status: draft`. Produced by the `/research-with-sources` skill. Every factual claim cites a specific doc in `external-sources/` (or an inline URL if ingest was skipped); no unsourced assertions. Keep the `sources:` frontmatter list aligned with the docs actually linked in the body. Promote to `articles/` via the `/consolidate-notes` skill once the team decides the findings are stable.

**`articles/`** — Canonical knowledge, committed