KB Compile

Incrementally turn immutable raw captures into reviewable draft knowledge.

In Karpathy's pattern, this is where "the LLM reads it, extracts the key information, and integrates it into the existing wiki — updating entity pages, revising topic summaries, noting where new data contradicts old claims." A single source might touch 10-15 wiki pages. In this contract, compile shapes candidates for the review gate rather than writing directly to the live brain.

Minimal loop

1. detect new or changed captures
2. compile them into reviewable summaries, topics, concepts, entities, relationships, and indices
3. apply the default 浓缩 -> 质疑 -> 对标 compile method
4. surface conflicts, alias overlap, duplicate risk, and hub candidates
5. hand the package to kb-review

When this compounds the wiki

kb-compile is where raw evidence first becomes reusable structure. Good compile work should reduce future rediscovery by turning captures into durable draft packages and by surfacing where the graph needs better links, syntheses, or hubs.

When not to promote

Compile shapes candidates. It does not approve truth and it should not bypass review just because a draft looks strong.

Read before compiling

Read these files first:

• local AGENTS.md
• local CLAUDE.md if present
• ../obsidian-notes-karpathy/scripts/skill-contract-registry.json
• ../obsidian-notes-karpathy/references/file-model.md
• ../obsidian-notes-karpathy/references/compile-method.md
• ../obsidian-notes-karpathy/references/draft-schema.md
• ../obsidian-notes-karpathy/references/summary-template.md

Treat skill-contract-registry.json as the canonical source for required references, baseline command, and allowed write surfaces.

If onkb is available, run onkb --json compile scan <vault-root> first.

If onkb is missing, follow the install fallback in ../obsidian-notes-karpathy/references/lifecycle-matrix.md, then rerun the same command.

Load on demand

Load these only when the trigger applies:

• ../obsidian-notes-karpathy/references/lifecycle-matrix.md — when onkb is missing (install fallback) or a stage handoff is unclear
• ../obsidian-notes-karpathy/references/schema-template.md — when vault-wide frontmatter fields beyond this skill's core schema need checking
• ../obsidian-notes-karpathy/references/concept-template.md — when shaping concept drafts
• ../obsidian-notes-karpathy/references/entity-template.md — when shaping entity drafts
• ../obsidian-notes-karpathy/references/activity-log-template.md — when appending an entry to wiki/log.md
• ../obsidian-notes-karpathy/references/provenance-and-alias-policy.md — when alias overlap, duplicate candidates, or provenance drift surfaces
• ../obsidian-notes-karpathy/references/paper-ingestion-lifecycle.md — when raw/**/papers/*.pdf appears in scans or plans
• ../obsidian-notes-karpathy/references/memory-lifecycle.md — when MEMORY.md or episodic memory boundaries are involved
• ../obsidian-notes-karpathy/references/graph-contract.md — when graph exports, related edges, or relationship candidates are involved
• ../obsidian-notes-karpathy/references/source-manifest-contract.md — when raw/_manifest.yaml fields or manifest anomalies are involved
• ../obsidian-notes-karpathy/references/topic-template.md — when shaping or promoting browse-layer topic pages
• ../obsidian-notes-karpathy/references/procedure-template.md — when the durable delta is procedural (workflow or playbook)

Non-negotiable rules

• do not rewrite raw/
• write only to wiki/drafts/ and draft indices, plus the single writeback exception below
• the writeback lane may advance writeback_status (and add the writeback_draft pointer) in outputs/qa/** and outputs/content/** frontmatter; it must not mutate any other archive content
• never promote directly into wiki/live/
• keep human captures and agent captures distinguishable in provenance
• keep PDF paper handling strict: raw/**/papers/*.pdf still routes through paper-workbench
• prefer tracked sources from raw/_manifest.yaml when it is present

Source discovery

Accept:

• markdown captures under raw/human/**
• markdown captures under raw/agents/{role}/**
• markdown captures directly under raw/ in bootstrap vaults
• image assets under raw/**/assets/*
• data assets under raw/**/data/*
• legacy-layout markdown captures under older paths only during migration
• paper PDFs under any papers/ subtree inside raw
• archived writeback candidates under outputs/qa/** and outputs/content/**, only when writeback_status: pending and followup_route: draft, through the writeback lane below

Writeback lane

pending -> drafted is owned by the deterministic writeback lane:

onkb --json compile writeback <vault-root> [--write]

• dry-run first: the report classifies every archived artifact as eligible or skipped with a reason; triaged, rejected, and followup_route: review artifacts are never picked up
• --write scaffolds one draft per eligible artifact under wiki/drafts/summaries/writeback/, writes its review package under wiki/drafts/indices/packages/writeback/, advances the artifact to writeback_status: "drafted" with a writeback_draft pointer, and appends a compile_writeback audit event
• the archived artifact is the trigger, not a truth source: the scaffold's compiled_from / capture_sources ground in the artifact's source_live_pages (approved pages or raw evidence), and the artifact itself is only referenced through writeback_source
• after scaffolding, refine the draft with the normal 浓缩 -> 质疑 -> 对标 method — distill the durable delta, split concept/entity/topic drafts when warranted — and hand the package to kb-review; the scaffold never bypasses the gate

Compile posture

Chinese-LLM-Wiki compatibility note:

• 来源页 maps to source-grounded draft summaries first
• 主题页 and 实体页 map to draft topic/entity updates first
• 综合页 only becomes approved truth after review, so compile should treat it as a draft synthesis candidate

Before shaping drafts:

• follow the shared compile method in compile-method.md
• normalize source metadata such as source_hash, source_mtime, last_verified_at, and possibly_outdated
• surface alias and duplicate candidates rather than silently creating competing concept/entity drafts
• treat duplicate/alias surfacing as both governance input and authoring leverage, so later query/publish work can reuse prior approved coverage instead of restating the same concept from scratch
• preserve cross-language or terminology overlap as review input, not as automatic merges
• surface repeated concept clusters, repeated question clusters, and likely hub candidates when the durable improvement is navigational rather than just another standalone page
• prefer strengthening relationships between likely draft/live neighbors when the knowledge exists but the graph is weak
• treat process-level takeaways as candidates for wiki/drafts/procedures/**, not as forced semantic pages
• treat cross-domain transfer value as a first-class output, not an optional flourish

Main outputs

• wiki/drafts/summaries/**
• wiki/drafts/topics/**
• wiki/drafts/concepts/**
• wiki/drafts/entities/** when needed
• wiki/drafts/procedures/** when the durable delta is a workflow rather than a semantic page
• wiki/drafts/indices/*
• wiki/drafts/indices/packages/**
• advanced writeback_status markers (plus writeback_draft pointers) in outputs/qa/** and outputs/content/** when the writeback lane runs
• batch ingest entry in wiki/log.md

The compile pass exists to hand clean draft packages to kb-review, which then writes outputs/reviews/**, promotes approved pages into wiki/live/**, and rebuilds wiki/briefings/**.

Draft requirements

Follow ../obsidian-notes-karpathy/references/draft-schema.md for the authoritative list of required and conditional draft fields (draft_id, compiled_from, capture_sources, review_state, review_score, blocking_flags, evidence_coverage, uncertainty_level, promotion_target, review_package_meta, plus conditional alias/duplicate/boundary/assumption/transfer/candidate/topic/confidence fields). Type-specific templates layer their own fields on top of that schema.

Keep source claims and compiler inferences cleanly separated — review depends on that separation to judge accuracy without re-reading the raw capture. Drafts should be shaped for review, not for final polish.

Checkpoint

Before writing draft packages, confirm with the user:

• how many captures will be compiled and which ones
• whether any sources look ambiguous, duplicated, or potentially conflicting with existing live pages
• whether alias or duplicate candidates should be surfaced now or deferred to review

For single-source incremental compiles with no ambiguity, proceed without pausing.

Output to the user

Always report:

1. how many captures were new, changed, or unchanged
2. how many draft summaries were created or updated
3. how many draft concepts or entities were touched
4. whether any PDFs were skipped because paper-workbench was unavailable
5. whether alias or duplicate candidates were surfaced for review
6. whether boundary conditions, assumption flags, or transfer targets were surfaced
7. whether the next step is kb-review