Karpathy LLM Wiki Bootstrap

简体中文

Build persistent, LLM-maintained Markdown wikis from articles, papers, books, research notes, and other source material.

This repository includes both an installable skill and a working reference wiki. The skill bootstraps a new wiki; the reference wiki shows the pattern in action, starting from Karpathy's LLM Wiki idea and compiling it into durable pages, links, concepts, comparisons, and synthesis.

The goal is not a one-off summary. It is a knowledge artifact that can keep improving through repeated ingest, query, and lint cycles.

Why This Exists

Most LLM document workflows behave like query-time RAG: retrieve a few chunks, answer the current question, then lose the intermediate structure. An LLM Wiki moves more work into a maintained Markdown layer.

Layer	Purpose
raw/	Immutable source material and evidence
wiki/	LLM-maintained summaries, concepts, entities, comparisons, and synthesis
SCHEMA.md	The operating contract every agent follows
Pointer files	Thin runtime redirects such as AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, or .github/copilot-instructions.md

The result is a wiki that compounds: new sources update existing pages, useful answers can be filed back, and linting keeps the structure healthy.

What Is Included

• skill/: the installable skill package with templates and workflows.
• llm-wiki/: a real reference wiki generated and maintained with the skill.
• karpathy-llm-wiki-original.md: repository copy of the original idea note.
• from-article-to-llm-wiki.article.en.md: full walkthrough article.

Quick Start

Install the skill:

npx skills add nanzhipro/Karpathy-llm-wiki-bootstrap-skill@llm-wiki-bootstrap

Then ask your agent:

bootstrap a wiki

When prompted, choose values such as:

Question	Example answer
Domain	Research topic
Wiki name	llm-wiki-demo
Runtime	OpenAI Codex, Claude Code, or Copilot (VS Code)
Editor	Obsidian or VS Code
Source types	Web articles
Output location	Current directory

Add a source:

cp karpathy-llm-wiki-original.md llm-wiki-demo/raw/

Then tell the agent:

Read llm-wiki-demo/SCHEMA.md, then ingest llm-wiki-demo/raw/karpathy-llm-wiki-original.md

After the first ingest, inspect:

• llm-wiki-demo/wiki/index.md
• llm-wiki-demo/wiki/concept-table.md
• llm-wiki-demo/wiki/overview.md
• llm-wiki-demo/wiki/log.md

For a Chinese-language wiki, tell the agent directly:

使用中文编译 karpathy-llm-wiki-original.md

Reference Wiki

llm-wiki/ is the best place to understand the system quickly. It is not placeholder content; it is a maintained example wiki built from real source material.

Useful entry points:

File	Why open it
llm-wiki/SCHEMA.md	Authoritative operating contract for agents
llm-wiki/wiki/index.md	Catalog of all wiki pages
llm-wiki/wiki/concept-table.md	Maintained concept map with definitions, relationships, sources, status, and maintenance notes
llm-wiki/wiki/overview.md	Top-level synthesis of the wiki
llm-wiki/wiki/log.md	Chronological operation history

Current shape:

llm-wiki/
├── SCHEMA.md
├── AGENTS.md
├── raw/
│   ├── Karpathy x.md
│   └── llm-wiki-pattern.md
└── wiki/
    ├── index.md
    ├── concept-table.md
    ├── overview.md
    ├── log.md
    ├── concepts/
    ├── entities/
    ├── comparisons/
    ├── sources/
    └── synthesis/

Core Workflow

Operation	Trigger	Result
Ingest	ingest raw/{file}	Reads a source, creates or updates wiki pages, updates the concept table, index, overview, and log
Query	Ask a domain question	Reads the index and relevant pages, optionally uses BM25, then answers with wiki citations
Lint	lint or health check	Finds contradictions, stale claims, orphan pages, concept-table drift, and missing links

The key files created inside each wiki are:

File	Role
SCHEMA.md	Single source of truth for agent behavior
wiki/index.md	Page catalog and primary navigation surface
wiki/concept-table.md	Compressed concept map for definitions, relationships, evidence status, and maintenance notes
wiki/overview.md	High-level synthesis
wiki/log.md	Append-only operation history

Optional BM25 Search

For larger wikis, the skill can initialize a local SQLite FTS5/BM25 search layer. BM25 is a candidate finder, not a source of truth: the agent must open returned wiki/ pages before answering.

Common commands inside a generated wiki:

python3 scripts/wiki_fts.py doctor
python3 scripts/wiki_fts.py build
python3 scripts/wiki_fts.py search "query text" --limit 10
python3 scripts/wiki_fts.py stats

See skill/references/workflows/bm25.md for the full workflow and data model rules.

Install Notes

Use the plural CLI:

npx skills add nanzhipro/Karpathy-llm-wiki-bootstrap-skill@llm-wiki-bootstrap

For non-interactive user-level install:

npx skills add nanzhipro/Karpathy-llm-wiki-bootstrap-skill@llm-wiki-bootstrap -g -y

To update an existing install:

npx skills update llm-wiki-bootstrap

Do not use npx skill ...; that is a different CLI.

Documentation

Topic	Link
Full walkthrough	Reading Is Not Enough
Chinese walkthrough	不是读完就算
Skill entry point	skill/SKILL.md
Bootstrap workflow	skill/references/workflows/bootstrap.md
Ingest workflow	skill/references/workflows/ingest.md
Query workflow	skill/references/workflows/query.md
Lint workflow	skill/references/workflows/lint.md
BM25 workflow	skill/references/workflows/bm25.md
Preferences schema	skill/references/config/extend-schema.md

Origin

The repository is grounded in Karpathy's original LLM Wiki note:

• Original gist: https://gist.github.com/karpathy/442a6bf555914893e9891c11519de94f
• Local copy: karpathy-llm-wiki-original.md

This project packages that idea into an installable skill and demonstrates it with a living reference wiki.