/wiki-init

name: wiki-init
description: Use when bootstrapping a new personal wiki for any knowledge domain — research, codebase documentation, reading notes, competitive analysis, or any long-term knowledge accumulation project.

Wiki Init

Bootstrap a new LLM-maintained wiki at a user-specified path.

Pre-flight

Check whether a `SCHEMA.md` already exists nearby. If yes, ask the user if they want to reinitialize or just continue with the existing wiki.

Process

1. Gather configuration (one question at a time)

Ask: 1. **Where should the wiki live?** (absolute path, e.g. `~/wikis/ml-research`) 2. **What is the domain/purpose?** (one sentence) 3. **What types of sources will you add?** (papers, URLs, code files, transcripts, etc.) 4. **What categories should `index.md` use?**

• Research default: `Sources | Entities | Concepts | Analyses`
• Codebase default: `Modules | APIs | Decisions | Flows` — see `codebase.md` in this skill's directory for detailed codebase guidance
• Or specify custom

5. **How will you primarily browse this wiki?** 1. Obsidian (or another `[[wiki-link]]`-aware viewer) — uses `[[slug]]` syntax 2. GitHub / VS Code preview / static-site generator / plain markdown — uses `[[slug](pages/slug.md)]` syntax

The choice is recorded in `SCHEMA.md` as `link_style: obsidian` or `link_style: markdown` and applied by every other wiki skill.

2. Create directory structure

<wiki-root>/
├── SCHEMA.md         ← conventions + absolute path (how other skills find the wiki)
├── config/
│   └── link-style.md ← cross-reference emit/parse rules (copied from this skill)
├── .gitignore        ← local-only / generated artifacts (audit reports, index) excluded from version control
├── bin/                  ← helper scripts (copied verbatim from this skill's assets/bin/)
│   ├── generate-index.py  ← regenerates wiki/index.md from page frontmatter (stdlib only)
│   ├── render-log.py      ← renders the operation log from git history (stdlib only)
│   ├── check-contradictions.py ← pre-commit gate: blocks staged pages flagged as contradicting
│   ├── lint-mechanical.py ← deterministic lint checks; full mode (JSON for wiki-lint) + --staged gate
│   └── hooks/pre-commit   ← tracked git hook chaining both gates (wired via core.hooksPath)
├── raw/              ← immutable source documents (you add these, LLM never modifies)
├── wiki/
│   ├── index.md      ← GENERATED catalog (gitignored) — never hand-edit; run bin/generate-index.py
│   ├── log.md        ← operation log — ONLY for non-git wikis (git wikis use git history)
│   ├── overview.md   ← evolving synthesis of everything known
│   └── pages/        ← all wiki pages, flat, slug-named (NO subdirectories)
└── assets/           ← downloaded images, PDFs, attachments

**Critical:** `wiki/pages/` is flat. All pages live here as `<slug>.md`. No subdirectories. Slugs are lowercase, hyphen-separated.

Copy the chosen link-style rule file into the wiki:

• If user picked option 1 (Obsidian): copy this skill's `config/link-style-obsidian.md` to `<wiki-root>/config/link-style.md`.
• If user picked option 2 (markdown): copy this skill's `config/link-style-markdown.md` to `<wiki-root>/config/link-style.md`.

Only one file is copied — the chosen one — and it is renamed to `link-style.md` in the wiki. Every other wiki skill reads from `<wiki-root>/config/link-style.md` to know how to emit and parse cross-references.

Ensure `<wiki-root>/.gitignore` excludes generated and local-only artifacts (audit reports and the generated index) — if the wiki is or later becomes a git repo, this keeps disposable artifacts out of version control. **Do not clobber an existing `.gitignore`** — a reinitialized wiki, or a wiki root nested in an existing git repo, may already have one:

• If `<wiki-root>/.gitignore` does not exist, create it with the block below.
• If it exists but is missing either ignore line, append whichever line(s) it lacks.
• If it already ignores both, leave it untouched.

# Audit reports are regenerated local-only artifacts (wiki-audit). The committed record
# of an audit is the `review:` frontmatter token on the audited page, not the report.
wiki/pages/audit-*.md
# index.md is generated from page frontmatter by bin/generate-index.py — a runtime
# artifact, regenerated on demand. The source of truth is each page's frontmatter.
wiki/index.md

This is the same create-or-append discipline `wiki-audit` uses to self-heal (Task 4).

3. Write `SCHEMA.md`

# Wiki Schema

## Identity
- **Path:** <absolute path to wiki-root>
- **Domain:** <user's domain description>
- **Source types:** <list>
- **Created:** <YYYY-MM-DD>

## Page Frontmatter
Every wiki page must start with:
---
title: <page title>
category: <one of the Index Categories below>
summary: <one-line description — becomes this page's index entry>
tags: [tag1, tag2]
sources: [source-slug1]
created: YYYY-MM-DD
updated: YYYY-MM-DD
---

`category` and `summary` drive index generation (see **Index Generation** below);
`category` must match one of the wiki's Index Categories. `created` is set once when the
page is first written and never changes; `updated` bumps on every edit.

## Cross-References
- **link_style:** <obsidian | markdown — the user's choice from step 1, question 5>
- **link_style_rules:** config/link-style.md
- See `config/link-style.md` for the exact emit and parse rules. Every wiki skill
  reads that file to decide how to write new cross-references and how to scan
  existing ones.

## Concept Identity

The slug **is** the concept's identity — there is no separate id. A concept is the
page at `wiki/pages/<slug>.md`; everything that links to it uses `[[slug]]`. This only
works if the link graph is trustworthy, so two rules hold everywhere links are written:

1. **Links are verified, never invented.** Before writing any `[[slug]]`, the slug must
   resolve to an existing `wiki/pages/<slug>.md` **or** to a page being created in the
   same