- 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` (`ok-beta` for Beta).
- 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-knowledgeskill (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. 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 when the work fits a layer.