Review Knowledge

Review Knowledge

Goal

Maintain knowledge base health and surface entries for review, helping the user internalize accumulated knowledge through periodic reflection.

When to Use

• User explicitly requests a knowledge review (e.g., "review knowledge", "check knowledge base")
• At the end of a significant work phase or project milestone
• When the user wants to understand the current state of knowledge on a topic
• Periodically (e.g., weekly/monthly) to keep the knowledge base healthy

Prerequisites

• .claude/knowledge/entries/ directory exists with entries created by record-knowledge
• .claude/knowledge/CLAUDE.md tag registry exists

Review Modes

Invoke with an optional argument to select a mode. If no argument is given, run health check.

1. Health Check (default)

Scan the entire knowledge base and report:

a. Stale Entries

• Entries older than 90 days with status: active — may need review for accuracy
• Detect by comparing created: date in frontmatter to the current date
• Report: list of entries with age, title, and tags

b. Orphan Entries

• Active entries with NO - see: links (disconnected from the knowledge graph)
• These represent isolated knowledge that may be hard to discover in future sessions
• Report: list of orphan entries with title and tags

c. Missing Connections

• Find pairs of active entries that share 2+ tags but have no - see: link between them
• These are likely related but not explicitly connected
• Report: list of suggested connections with shared tags

d. Tag Health

• Tags in entries that are not registered in .claude/knowledge/CLAUDE.md
• Tags in the registry that are not used by any entry
• Near-duplicate tags (same rules as record-knowledge similarity check)

e. Summary Statistics

• Total entries (active / deprecated)
• Average see links per entry
• Most connected entries (highest see link count)
• Most used tags

f. Unidirectional Links

• Entry A has a - see: link to entry B, but entry B does NOT have a - see: link back to entry A
• These represent broken bidirectional links that reduce discoverability from the target entry's side
• Report: list of unidirectional pairs with source entry, target entry, and direction of missing link

g. Broken See Links

• For each - see: link in entries, verify that the target file exists under entries/
• Resolve entries/-relative paths (e.g., 2026/03/slug.md) and legacy filename-only paths (slug.md)
• Report: list of entries with broken see links, including the missing target path

h. Broken File References

• For each - ref: link pointing to a local file path (not external URLs), verify the target exists
• Resolve relative paths from the entry's location
• Report: list of entries with broken ref links

i. Oversized Entries

• Entries exceeding 500 KB: report as warning (consider splitting)
• Entries exceeding 1 MB: report as action required (split recommended)
• Entries exceeding 300 lines: report as suggestion (may benefit from splitting)
• Report: list of oversized entries with size, line count, and tags

j. Synthesis Candidates

• Active entries sharing 2+ tags with 3+ entries in the cluster, and no synthesis entry exists for that tag combination
• fragment entries older than 60 days that have accumulated 2+ see: links (hub-forming signal)
• Report with prompt: "These entries may be ready for synthesis. Create one?"

k. Superseded Chain Check

• Entries with status: superseded must have a valid superseded_by path
• Check that the replacement entry exists and is active
• Report broken superseded chains

l. Missing Overview

• For each tag used by 5+ active entries, check if an overview type entry exists for that topic
• An overview entry is identified by type: overview in frontmatter
• Report: list of tags with entry count but no overview, suggesting overview creation

2. Topic Review (topic:<keyword or tag>)

Deep dive into a specific topic:

1. Search entries by tag or keyword
2. Present a structured summary of all related knowledge:
   • Key facts and decisions
   • Known pitfalls
   • Related entries and their connections
3. Ask the user reflective questions:
   • "Is this still accurate based on your current experience?"
   • "Have you encountered new pitfalls not yet recorded?"
   • "Are there entries that should be deprecated?"

3. Fix Mode (fix)

Interactively fix issues found in the health check:

1. Run health check first
2. For each issue found, take action:
   • Orphan entries: Search for related entries and add see links (using the same search procedure as record-knowledge step 4)
   • Missing connections: Add see links between suggested pairs (with user-facing notification)
   • Unidirectional links: Add the missing reverse - see: link to the target entry so both entries link to each other
   • Broken see links: Search entries/ for the target filename — if found at a different path (e.g., migrated to YYYY/MM/), auto-fix the link. If not found, report for manual review
   • Broken file references: Report for manual review (target may need to be created or the ref removed)
   • Oversized entries: Propose splitting using the split procedure from record-knowledge — ask for confirmation before splitting
   • Synthesis candidates: Draft a synthesis entry template from the candidate entries — ask for user review before creating
   • Broken superseded chains: Report for manual review (the replacement entry may need to be created or the superseded_by path corrected)
   • Missing overviews: Generate an overview entry template for the user to review — do NOT auto-create, ask for confirmation first
   • Unregistered tags: Auto-add missing tags to the registry in .claude/knowledge/CLAUDE.md under the appropriate section
   • Unused tags: Report for manual review (do not auto-delete)
3. Report actions taken

Output Format

# Knowledge Base Review — YYYY-MM-DD

## Health Summary
- Total entries: N (active: N, deprecated: N)
- Orphan entries: N
- Stale entries (>90 days): N
- Missing connections: N suggested
- Unidirectional links: N
- Broken see links: N
- Broken file references: N
- Oversized entries: N
- Synthesis candidates: N
- Broken superseded chains: N
- Missing overviews: N
- Tag issues: N

## Stale Entries
| Entry | Age | Tags |
|-------|-----|------|
| [title](slug.md) | N days | #tag1 #tag2 |

## Orphan Entries
| Entry | Tags |
|-------|------|
| [title](slug.md) | #tag1 #tag2 |

## Suggested Connections
| Entry A | Entry B | Shared Tags |
|---------|---------|-------------|
| [title](slug.md) | [title](slug.md) | #tag1 #tag2 |

## Unidirectional Links
| Source | Target | Missing Direction |
|--------|--------|-------------------|
| [title](slug.md) | [title](slug.md) | target → source |

## Broken See Links
| Entry | Broken Target |
|-------|---------------|
| [title](YYYY/MM/slug.md) | `YYYY/MM/missing.md` |

## Broken File References
| Entry | Broken Ref |
|-------|------------|
| [title](YYYY/MM/slug.md) | `../../../path/to/missing` |

## Oversized Entries
| Entry | Size | Lines | Tags | Severity |
|-------|------|-------|------|----------|
| [title](YYYY/MM/slug.md) | 1.2 MB | 542 | #tag1 | action required |
| [title](YYYY/MM/slug.md) | 600 KB | 380 | #tag2 | warning |

## Synthesis Candidates
| Tag Cluster | Entries | Suggestion |
|-------------|---------|------------|
| #tag1 #tag2 | entry-a, entry-b, entry-c | Ready for synthesis |

## Broken Superseded Chains
| Entry | superseded_by | Issue |
|-------|---------------|-------|
| [title](YYYY/MM/slug.md) | `YYYY/MM/missing.md` | Replacement not found |

## Missing Overviews
| Tag | Entry Count | Suggestion |
|-----|-------------|------------|
| #tag1 | N | Consider creating an overview entry |

## Tag Issues
- Unregistered: #tag1, #tag2
- Unused: #tag3
- Near-duplicates: #foo / #foos

**Tip**: Run `scripts/regenerate-tag-registry.py --write` to rebuild the tag registry from entries.

Procedure

1. Glob .claude/knowledge/entries/**/*.md to list all entries (recursively, including YYYY/MM/ subdirectories)
2. Read each entry's YAML frontmatter (title, status, created, tags) and scan for - see: lines
3. Read .claude/knowledge/CLAUDE.md for the tag registry
4. Analyze and generate the report based on the selected mode
5. If fix mode: execute fixes autonomously and report what was changed
6. Output the report to the user (do NOT write it to a file unless requested)