Wiki Writing

Hermes Wiki Writing

This is the default writing skill for Hermes LLM Wikis. It describes how to author and curate Wiki Pages that stay consistent with the wiki's Schema. A wiki can override this default with hermes wiki skills set writing <skill-name>.

Page types

Choose the narrowest type that fits (defined in each wiki's SCHEMA.md):

• source — curated summary of one immutable Source Snapshot (created by ingestion; rarely written by hand).
• entity — people, organizations, products, projects, concrete nouns.
• concept — ideas, methods, patterns, claims, mechanisms.
• comparison — structured tradeoffs between entities or concepts.
• query — a saved research question and its answer trail.
• summary — synthesized overview spanning multiple Wiki Pages.

Creating a page

hermes wiki create-page "Page Title" \
  --body "Markdown body…" \
  --type concept \
  --tag <taxonomy-tag> \
  --source sources/<source-page-id> \
  [--wiki <slug>] [--author <name>] [--author-kind agent|profile|human|cron]

Requires a write grant. Re-running with the same title updates the page (content merge, updated refresh) rather than duplicating it.

Frontmatter contract

Every page carries YAML frontmatter; the required keys come from the wiki's SCHEMA.md (required_frontmatter), by default:

id: concepts/agent-memory      # <type-dir>/<slug>, stable forever
title: Agent Memory
type: concept
created: 2026-06-06T12:00:00Z
updated: 2026-06-06T12:00:00Z
author: <who wrote it>
author_kind: agent | profile | human | cron
sources: [sources/2026-06-06-some-article]
tags: [<taxonomy tags only>]

• id never changes once created — links depend on it.
• sources must reference real source pages; claims should trace to sources.
• tags must come from the wiki's Taxonomy section in SCHEMA.md. Propose a taxonomy edit rather than inventing ad-hoc tags.

Body conventions

• Standard relative Markdown links only ([Agent Memory](../concepts/agent-memory.md)), no wiki-link syntax, no absolute paths, no bare URLs for internal references.
• Cross-link generously: when a page mentions another page's subject, link it.
• Respect the Schema's page_line_limit (default 200 lines) — split into multiple pages or a summary page instead of growing one page unboundedly.
• Page History does not belong in the body; it is rendered from log.md, git, and the projection.

Synthesis protocol

Quality rules for what gets written, adapted from the upstream research-llm-wiki skill (see upstream_skill_version in this file's metadata) to this wiki's conventions.

Page-creation threshold (dedup)

• Create a page when an entity or concept appears in 2+ sources OR is central to one source. Do not create pages for passing mentions, minor details, or topics outside the wiki's domain.
• Before creating, search (hermes wiki search "<title>") for the title and close variants. If a similar page exists, extend it — never duplicate.

Contradiction protocol

When new information conflicts with an existing page:

1. Check dates — newer sources generally supersede older ones. Update the claim, citing both source pages with their dates, and keep any slice of the older claim that still holds.
2. If genuinely contradictory (no clear recency winner), record both positions in the body with dates and sources.
3. Set contested: true and record the conflicting page id(s) in the contradictions: frontmatter field. Lint surfaces this for review (unresolved_contested) until a human or agent resolves it.

Never silently merge conflicting claims or pick a winner without justification.

Provenance

• On pages synthesizing 3+ sources, end each paragraph whose claims come from one specific source with a relative link to that source page, e.g. ([source](../sources/2026-06-06-some-article.md)).
• Single-source pages rely on the frontmatter sources: field.
• Hedge weakly supported claims in the body ("field reports suggest…") and set confidence: to honestly reflect sourcing strength — single anecdotal sourcing is low, not high.

Propagation (what happens after a write)

Per the wiki's Propagation Rules, a durable page write also:

1. Updates the relevant index.md section (sectioned catalog).
2. Appends an attributed row to log.md.
3. Refreshes the SQLite projection (wiki.db).
4. Commits to the wiki-local git repo with the acting author.

The CLI/tool surfaces do this automatically — never skip them by editing projection state directly. After manual bulk edits, run hermes wiki lint to verify and repair.

Kanban linkage

When a page motivates or tracks work, link it:

hermes wiki link <page-id> <task-id>
hermes wiki refs <page-id>

Curation rules

• Update over duplicate: search first (hermes wiki search), then extend.
• Keep claims attributable: cite source pages, keep confidence honest.
• Comparisons need at least two real subject pages — link both.
• Archive superseded content into _archive/ rather than deleting.

Self-check before committing

Verify before every durable write:

• Every claim is traceable to a page listed in sources: — nothing the sources do not support, no upgraded certainty.
• The page-creation threshold is met (2+ sources or central to one), and a search confirmed no existing page already covers this subject.
• Conflicts with existing pages followed the contradiction protocol — nothing silently merged.
• confidence honestly reflects sourcing strength.
• Tags come from the Schema taxonomy, links resolve, and the body stays within page_line_limit.

If any item fails, fix the page and re-check before writing.