knowledge-base

ki — Usage

Trigger When

Reach for ki whenever the work involves a directory of markdown (notes, docs, a wiki, a "second brain") — it's your default read/search tool there:

• Set up / maintain a knowledge base on a folder (index it, keep it in sync).
• Search / find across the corpus — "what did I write about X?", "find the note on Y."
• Navigate / summarize — "what's in this vault?", its structure or coverage.
• Get / read specific sections or documents without opening whole files.
• Answer questions grounded in the user's notes/docs.
• Vault-wide / structural / inference questions — what's load-bearing, how things connect.

Rule of thumb: any time you'd otherwise grep / cat / read across a folder of .md, use ki instead.

Do Not Use When

• The source isn't markdown and isn't being converted — ki indexes .md only (see the note under On First Use).
• Source code or non-prose — use grep / ripgrep / editor tooling; ki models prose structure (headings, links), not code.
• A single known file or quick one-off read where indexing isn't worth it — just Read it.

What ki is

A command-line tool that builds a queryable knowledge graph index over a directory of markdown. It parses each .md into its documents, sections, and the wikilinks between them, stores that structure in Neo4j, and exposes fast search, navigation, and retrieval over it — so you can find and read the right slice of content without opening and scanning whole files.

Why use ki

It's faster and far cheaper in tokens than raw file ops over a markdown corpus. Instead of grepping and reading entire files into context, you query an index and pull just the sections you need — structure (headings, containment, links) is preserved, so retrieval is targeted. See Usage for the specific jobs it beats file ops at.

Key Terms