Building a Wiki
A knowledge base is a compiler, not an interpreter: knowledge is compiled once and kept current, not re-derived from raw sources at every question. The human picks the sources and asks the questions; the agent does the bookkeeping — cross-references, freshness, contradictions across dozens of pages — the part whose cost makes humans abandon wikis.
The deliverable is a bundle of pages plus a schema in the root AGENTS.md of the repository that holds it. This skill holds the format and the operations; the schema holds only the domain, and routes every later ingest, query, and lint back here.
When Not To Use
- Retrieval over documents as they stand — RAG, full-text search, and MCP complement a knowledge base rather than replace one.
- A single source summarized once, with nothing accumulating — summarize it.
- Knowledge that already exists as a machine-readable schema (OpenAPI, Protobuf) — reference it instead of absorbing it.
Operating an Existing Bundle
Read the repository's AGENTS.md for the domain, then run the operation as references/operations.md defines it — ingest, query, lint, or update — deviating only where AGENTS.md says so.
Before letting ingests run in parallel, adding a second audience, or passing roughly 100 sources, read references/scale.md.
Bootstrapping a Bundle
The interview and the pilot are conversations. Run unattended, every answer the user would have given becomes an assumption: write it into AGENTS.md as one and report the list, so the domain the schema claims is the domain the user recognizes.
Interview the domain. Establish the sources, the readers, the questions the base must answer, and the tool the wiki is read in — the last decides the link convention. Then decide source precedence: when two sources disagree, which wins, for which kind of claim. Without written precedence the agent believes whatever it read last. Done when precedence is recorded per claim type and each source is classified as mirrored or reachable only by URI.
Lay out the bundle and fix the page format, following references/page-format.md; a bundle published with GitHub Pages is configured per references/github-pages.md. Done when docs/ exists, its README.md opens with the domain's vocabulary as a CONTEXT section, the link convention is confirmed against the actual viewer, and every mirrored source sits under docs/raw/.
Write the schema against the checklist in references/schema.md: the sources and their precedence, the permitted types, the conventions this domain picked, and the mistakes the agent actually makes here. Done when every checklist item is either answered in AGENTS.md or reported to the user as not applicable — an item that does not apply earns no line in the schema.
Pilot at 20–50 concepts. Ingest one source at a time with the user in the loop, discussing the takeaways before any page is written, and review the resulting diffs rather than the plans — approving what the agent intends to do misses far more than reading what it wrote. Done when lint reports zero errors, every type has a stale_after rule, and a named reviewer owns each type.
1---2name: building-wiki3description: Bootstraps and operates a wiki — cited pages compiled from sources by an agent, plus the `AGENTS.md` schema governing one domain. Use when asked to set up a knowledge base, wiki, or knowledge bundle so findings compound instead of being re-derived per question, to write or audit the schema of an existing one, or to ingest a source into an existing bundle of docs, answer a question from it, lint it, or refresh it after a source changed.4license: MIT5---67# Building a Wiki89A knowledge base is a **compiler**, not an interpreter: knowledge is compiled once and kept current, not re-derived from raw sources at every question. The human picks the sources and asks the questions; the agent does the bookkeeping — cross-references, freshness, contradictions across dozens of pages — the part whose cost makes humans abandon wikis.1011The deliverable is a bundle of pages plus a schema in the root `AGENTS.md` of the repository that holds it. This skill holds the format and the operations; the schema holds only the domain, and routes every later ingest, query, and lint back here.1213## When Not To Use1415- Retrieval over documents as they stand — RAG, full-text search, and MCP complement a knowledge base rather than replace one.16- A single source summarized once, with nothing accumulating — summarize it.17- Knowledge that already exists as a machine-readable schema (OpenAPI, Protobuf) — reference it instead of absorbing it.1819## Operating an Existing Bundle2021Read the repository's `AGENTS.md` for the domain, then run the operation as [`references/operations.md`](references/operations.md) defines it — ingest, query, lint, or update — deviating only where `AGENTS.md` says so.2223Before letting ingests run in parallel, adding a second audience, or passing roughly 100 sources, read [`references/scale.md`](references/scale.md).2425## Bootstrapping a Bundle2627The interview and the pilot are conversations. Run unattended, every answer the user would have given becomes an assumption: write it into `AGENTS.md` as one and report the list, so the domain the schema claims is the domain the user recognizes.28291. **Interview the domain.** Establish the sources, the readers, the questions the base must answer, and the tool the wiki is read in — the last decides the link convention. Then decide **source precedence**: when two sources disagree, which wins, for which kind of claim. Without written precedence the agent believes whatever it read last. Done when precedence is recorded per claim type and each source is classified as mirrored or reachable only by URI.30312. **Lay out the bundle and fix the page format**, following [`references/page-format.md`](references/page-format.md); a bundle published with GitHub Pages is configured per [`references/github-pages.md`](references/github-pages.md). Done when `docs/` exists, its `README.md` opens with the domain's vocabulary as a CONTEXT section, the link convention is confirmed against the actual viewer, and every mirrored source sits under `docs/raw/`.32333. **Write the schema** against the checklist in [`references/schema.md`](references/schema.md): the sources and their precedence, the permitted types, the conventions this domain picked, and the mistakes the agent actually makes here. Done when every checklist item is either answered in `AGENTS.md` or reported to the user as not applicable — an item that does not apply earns no line in the schema.34354. **Pilot at 20–50 concepts.** Ingest one source at a time with the user in the loop, discussing the takeaways before any page is written, and review the resulting diffs rather than the plans — approving what the agent intends to do misses far more than reading what it wrote. Done when lint reports zero errors, every `type` has a `stale_after` rule, and a named reviewer owns each `type`.
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