llm-wiki

---

name: llm-wiki description: Bootstrap or operate a Karpathy-style LLM-maintained personal knowledge base. Scaffolds folder structure, hooks, scripts, and AGENTS.md from bundled templates. Operations: setup (new project), compile (raw→wiki), query (ask questions), lint (health check), ingest (specific file), status (KB stats). author: Victor Nam Hac

llm-wiki — LLM Knowledge Base Skill

You are running the llm-wiki skill. This implements Andrej Karpathy's LLM Wiki pattern — an LLM-maintained knowledge base where raw sources are compiled into a persistent, interlinked wiki of markdown files.

IMPORTANT: At skill load time, Claude Code prints Base directory for this skill: /path/to/skill. Extract that path and set it as SKILL_DIR before running any scaffold commands. All bundled files (scripts, hooks, templates) live inside $SKILL_DIR.

Bundled layout:

$SKILL_DIR/
├── SKILL.md
├── scripts/              ← compile.py, query.py, lint.py, flush.py, config.py, utils.py, setup_hooks.py
│   └── hooks/            ← session-start.py, session-end.py, pre-compact.py
├── references/
│   └── AGENTS.md         ← schema / compiler specification
└── assets/
    ├── pyproject.toml    ← dependency template
    └── settings-hooks.json ← Claude hooks config template (points to project hooks/)

Target project layout after setup:

<project>/
├── AGENTS.md                     ← copied from $SKILL_DIR/references/AGENTS.md
├── pyproject.toml
├── .claude/settings.local.json   ← hooks point to project hooks/ (NOT skill dir)
├── scripts/                      ← copied from $SKILL_DIR/scripts/
├── hooks/                        ← copied from $SKILL_DIR/scripts/hooks/
├── knowledge/
│   ├── index.md
│   ├── log.md
│   ├── concepts/
│   ├── connections/
│   └── qa/
├── raw/articles/                 ← drop sources here
├── daily/                        ← conversation logs
└── reports/                      ← lint output

Why project-owned hooks and scripts:

• Hooks use Path(__file__).resolve().parent.parent to find the project root
• This only resolves correctly when the hook lives in <project>/hooks/ (one level below root)
• Running hooks from the skill dir would compute the wrong root and fail silently
• Scripts in <project>/scripts/ are project-owned — edit them without touching the skill

---

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

Step 1 — Capture SKILL_DIR

The skill load message shows: Base directory for this skill: /some/path Set that as SKILL_DIR for all subsequent commands.

Step 2 — Detect the operation from the arguments:

Argument	Operation
setup or no args in new dir	Scaffold new LLM Wiki project
compile	Compile raw/daily sources → knowledge articles
compile --file <path>	Compile one specific source file
compile --all	Force recompile everything
query "<question>"	Query the knowledge base
query "<question>" --file-back	Query + file answer back into KB
lint	Run all 7 health checks
lint --structural-only	Structural checks only (free)
ingest <file>	Ingest a raw article from raw/articles/
status	KB stats: article counts, costs, log

Create tasks for the detected operations, then proceed to the relevant STATE.

---

STATE 0: DETECT CONTEXT

ls knowledge/ 2>/dev/null && echo "HAS_KB" || echo "NO_KB"
ls scripts/   2>/dev/null && echo "HAS_SCRIPTS" || echo "NO_SCRIPTS"
ls AGENTS.md  2>/dev/null && echo "HAS_AGENTS" || echo "NO_AGENTS"

• knowledge/ + AGENTS.md both exist → existing wiki, go to the requested operation STATE
• Neither exists → new project, go to STATE 1: SCAFFOLD
• Partial → incomplete, go to STATE 1 to fill gaps only

---

STATE 1: SCAFFOLD

Mark task in_progress.

Step 1 — Confirm SKILL_DIR

echo "SKILL_DIR: $SKILL_DIR"
ls "$SKILL_DIR/scripts/"
ls "$SKILL_DIR/hooks/"
ls "$SKILL_DIR/templates/"

If any listing fails, STOP and tell the user: "Could not find bundled files in $SKILL_DIR — please check the skill installation."

Step 2 — Create directory structure

mkdir -p knowledge/concepts knowledge/connections knowledge/qa
mkdir -p raw/articles raw/assets
mkdir -p daily reports hooks scripts
mkdir -p .claude

Step 3 — Copy scripts

cp "$SKILL_DIR/scripts/compile.py"     scripts/compile.py
cp "$SKILL_DIR/scripts/query.py"       scripts/query.py
cp "$SKILL_DIR/scripts/lint.py"        scripts/lint.py
cp "$SKILL_DIR/scripts/flush.py"       scripts/flush.py
cp "$SKILL_DIR/scripts/config.py"      scripts/config.py
cp "$SKILL_DIR/scripts/utils.py"       scripts/utils.py
cp "$SKILL_DIR/scripts/setup_hooks.py" scripts/setup_hooks.py

Step 4 — Copy hooks

cp "$SKILL_DIR/scripts/hooks/session-start.py" hooks/session-start.py
cp "$SKILL_DIR/scripts/hooks/session-end.py"   hooks/session-end.py
cp "$SKILL_DIR/scripts/hooks/pre-compact.py"   hooks/pre-compact.py

Step 5 — Copy assets (templates)

cp "$SKILL_DIR/references/AGENTS.md"      AGENTS.md
cp "$SKILL_DIR/assets/pyproject.toml"     pyproject.toml

Step 6 — Create knowledge/index.md and log.md

Write knowledge/index.md:

# Knowledge Base Index

| Article | Summary | Compiled From | Updated |
|---------|---------|---------------|---------|

Write knowledge/log.md:

# Build Log

<!-- Append-only. Format: ## [ISO-TIMESTAMP] operation | description -->

Step 7 — Wire hooks in .claude/settings.local.json

Run the bundled setup script — it safely merges the three llm-wiki hooks into .claude/settings.local.json without touching any other keys:

uv run python scripts/setup_hooks.py

Expected output:

Installed llm-wiki hooks in .claude/settings.local.json
  SessionStart  → hooks/session-start.py
  PreCompact    → hooks/pre-compact.py
  SessionEnd    → hooks/session-end.py

Restart Claude Code to activate the hooks.

To uninstall hooks later: uv run python scripts/setup_hooks.py --remove

Why a script instead of manual editing: The script handles the JSON merge correctly, strips stale skill-dir paths from previous installs, and is idempotent (safe to run multiple times).

Step 8 — Add .gitignore entries

Append to .gitignore (or create it):

# LLM Wiki runtime state
scripts/state.json
scripts/last-flush.json
scripts/*.log
reports/
__pycache__/
*.pyc
.env

Step 9 — Verify

uv run python scripts/config.py && echo "Scripts OK"

If uv is not found:

curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

Report what was created and next steps:

1. Drop sources into raw/articles/ (markdown, Obsidian clips)
2. Or write conversation logs to daily/YYYY-MM-DD.md
3. Run /llm-wiki compile to build the knowledge base
4. Run /llm-wiki query "your question" to search it

Mark task completed.

---

STATE 2: COMPILE

Mark task in_progress.

Step 1 — Check what needs compiling

uv run python scripts/compile.py --dry-run

Then run the appropriate command:

# Specific file:
uv run python scripts/compile.py --file <path>

# Force all:
uv run python scripts/compile.py --all

# Incremental (default — skips unchanged):
uv run python scripts/compile.py

Note: The default compile scans both daily/*.md and all raw/**/*.md recursively. Use --file only when you want to target one specific file.

Step 2 — Handle errors

ModuleNotFoundError: claude_agent_sdk → run uv add claude-agent-sdk first.

Step 3 — Report results

echo "concepts: $(ls knowledge/concepts/ 2>/dev/null | wc -l)"
echo "connections: $(ls knowledge/connections/ 2>/dev/null | wc -l)"
echo "qa: $(ls knowledge/qa/ 2>/dev/null | wc -l)"
cat knowledge/index.md

Show the user how many articles were created and the updated index.

Mark task completed.

---

STATE 3: QUERY

Mark task in_progress.

Index-guided retrieval — no RAG, no embeddings. The LLM reads the index and selects relevant articles.

# Without filing back:
uv run python scripts/query.py "<question>"

# With --file-back (saves answer as knowledge/qa/article.md):
uv run python scripts/query.py "<question>" --file-back

Display the full answer. If --file-back, show the path of the filed article.

Scale note: Under ~500 articles, index-guided retrieval outperforms vector search. Over ~2000 articles, consider adding qmd (hybrid BM25+vector).

Mark task completed.

---

STATE 4: LINT

Mark task in_progress.

7 health checks

Check	Type	Detects
Broken links	Structural	[[wikilinks]] to non-existent articles
Orphan pages	Structural	Articles with zero inbound links
Orphan sources	Structural	Source files not yet compiled
Stale articles	Structural	Source changed since last compile
Missing backlinks	Structural	A→B but B doesn't link back to A
Sparse articles	Structural	Under 200 words
Contradictions	LLM	Conflicting claims across articles

# All checks (~$0.15-0.25):
uv run python scripts/lint.py

# Structural only (free):
uv run python scripts/lint.py --structural-only

Read and summarize the report:

cat reports/lint-$(date +%Y-%m-%d).md

Group by severity: error → fix now, warning → fix soon, suggestion → consider.

Mark task completed.

---

STATE 5: INGEST

Mark task in_progress.

Shorthand for compile --file raw/articles/<name>.md.

ls raw/articles/
uv run python scripts/compile.py --file raw/articles/<filename>.md

After compile, show the new concept articles:

ls -lt knowledge/concepts/ | head -5

Mark task completed.

---

STATE 6: STATUS

echo "=== Knowledge Base Status ==="
echo "Articles:"
echo "  concepts/:    $(ls knowledge/concepts/ 2>/dev/null | wc -l)"
echo "  connections/: $(ls knowledge/connections/ 2>/dev/null | wc -l)"
echo "  qa/:          $(ls knowledge/qa/ 2>/dev/null | wc -l)"
echo ""
echo "Sources:"
echo "  raw/articles/: $(ls raw/articles/ 2>/dev/null | wc -l)"
echo "  daily/:        $(ls daily/ 2>/dev/null | wc -l)"
echo ""
echo "Index (last 20 lines):"
tail -20 knowledge/index.md 2>/dev/null || echo "(empty)"
echo ""
echo "Build log (last 5 entries):"
grep "^## \[" knowledge/log.md 2>/dev/null | tail -5 || echo "(empty)"
echo ""
echo "State:"
python3 -c "
import json, sys
try:
    s = json.load(open('scripts/state.json'))
    print(f'  Total cost:    \${s.get(\"total_cost\", 0):.2f}')
    print(f'  Queries run:   {s.get(\"query_count\", 0)}')
    print(f'  Last lint:     {s.get(\"last_lint\", \"never\")}')
    print(f'  Compiled logs: {len(s.get(\"ingested\", {}))}')
except: print('  (state.json not found)')
"

---

Key Design Principles

1. Raw sources are immutable — never modify raw/ or daily/. LLM reads, never writes.
2. The wiki is LLM-owned — knowledge/ belongs to the compiler. Humans read, LLM writes.
3. Index-guided retrieval — at <500 articles, a structured index beats cosine similarity.
4. Compounding answers — --file-back turns every query into a permanent wiki article.
5. Hooks = automatic capture — session-end.py and pre-compact.py capture long sessions; session-start.py injects the index at startup.
6. The wiki is a git repo — commit knowledge/ for version history and diffs.

---

Troubleshooting

Problem	Fix
ModuleNotFoundError: claude_agent_sdk	uv add claude-agent-sdk
uv: command not found	curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh
Hook not firing	Restart Claude Code; check .claude/settings.local.json has SessionStart
compile.py finds nothing	Use --file for raw/articles/; default scans daily/ only
Empty knowledge after compile	Check scripts/compile.log for API errors
Index too large for context	>500 articles — add qmd search layer