Project Name
Vault template
First committed by asakin
Published in asakin/llm-context-base. Publisher page
74 GitHub stars
What it is
A git template for building your own LLM-powered personal wiki. Training period, metadata standard, lint system included. Clone and go.
AutoGineer overview, from the brain’s own files
llm-context-base is an opinionated template designed to turn a local git repository into an LLM-powered personal wiki. It implements a three-layer pattern consisting of raw source documents, an LLM-maintained wiki, and a schema configuration. The system is designed to adapt to a user's workflow over time, eliminating the need for upfront taxonomy design. It includes a metadata standard for queryable files, an inbox-first capture system with a 7-day TTL, and a linting system to maintain document health. It supports various AI tools including Claude Code, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot, providing a consistent interface for managing personal knowledge.
How it works
Memory model: LLM wiki
AutoGineer overview, from the brain’s own files
The system uses a specific folder structure including 1-Projects, 2-Knowledge, 3-Journal, and 4-Private, alongside configuration and metadata folders. Users capture information into an _inbox folder, which the AI then processes and files according to a metadata standard. The system is bootstrapped via configuration files in .claude, .cursor, and .github, which direct the AI to follow instructions located in _config and _meta. It uses a training period to learn user patterns and maintains documentation through a split README file that separates user-specific content from framework documentation.
| Folder | Role | Files |
|---|---|---|
| .claude | agent-config | 2 |
| .cursor | agent-config | 1 |
| .github | agent-config | 1 |
| .obsidian | obsidian-config | 7 |
| assets | attachments | 2 |
| docs | docs | 13 |
| examples | examples | 4 |
| 1-Projects | folder | 3 |
| 2-Knowledge | folder | 5 |
| 3-Journal | folder | 1 |
| 4-Private | folder | 1 |
| _config | folder | 4 |
| _inbox | folder | 1 |
| _meta | folder | 14 |
| _output | folder | 1 |
| _sources | folder | 2 |
The agent reads
- CONTRIBUTING.md evidence: .claude/CLAUDE.md
- _config/config.md evidence: README.md
The agent writes
- _config/config.md evidence: .claude/CLAUDE.md
- _config/context.md evidence: .claude/CLAUDE.md
- _inbox/ evidence: .claude/CLAUDE.md
- _output/ evidence: README.md
Requirements
Apps: Obsidian
Databases: MongoDB, PostgreSQL
Works with: Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Devin (ex-Windsurf)
Set it up
- Download the brain as a ZIP and unzip it where you keep your notes or project: https://mp-staging.autogineer.com/agent-brains/asakin/llm-context-base/download
In Obsidian, choose “Open folder as vault” and pick the folder.
Claude Code reads .claude/CLAUDE.md from this folder automatically.
cd llm-context-base && claude
AutoGineer scanned these files at commit 3c096ca.
First committed by asakin. Published in asakin/llm-context-base. Licence: Apache License 2.0.
Usage
AutoGineer overview, from the brain’s own files
- Capture unstructured notes into the inbox for later organization by the AI.
- Maintain decision records with context, options, and rationale.
- Query the wiki to synthesize information across multiple documents.
- Run linting commands to identify stale files or missing metadata.
- Manage project initiatives with briefs and timeline tracking.
- Generate reports or summaries from stored knowledge.
- “Capture this: here's how our onboarding process works...”
- Creates a file in the inbox and offers to file it in the appropriate location.
- “We decided to use PostgreSQL over MongoDB, let me document why”
- Generates a decision record with context, options, rationale, and an outcome section.
- “What do we know about our hiring process?”
- Scans file summaries and synthesizes an answer with source citations.
- “Lint the wiki”
- Surfaces stale files, missing metadata, and orphaned documents.
Documentation by asakin
[Project Name]
This README will be personalized during your first session.
<!-- llm-context-base:framework-readme -->
llm-context-base
An opinionated template for building your own LLM Wiki.
Use the template, point your AI assistant at it, and start talking. Over time, it learns how you work and adapts its structure to your needs without you having to design anything upfront.
How This Relates to Karpathy's LLM Wiki
Andrej Karpathy's LLM Wiki gist describes a three-layer pattern: raw source documents → an LLM-maintained wiki → a schema config file (like CLAUDE.md or AGENTS.md). The LLM reads sources, maintains structured wiki pages, and follows the schema config to stay consistent.
llm-context-base implements this pattern as a ready-to-use template — so you don't have to build it from scratch. What it adds on top of the base pattern:
Metadata standard — every file gets a queryable header (type, summary, tags, status, date). The LLM scans these instead of loading full files, which scales cleanly to hundreds of documents.
Inbox-first capture — a frictionless landing zone with a 7-day TTL. You capture without deciding where things go. The LLM files them later.
Training period — the system starts chatty (learning your patterns) and goes quiet as it adapts. You never design a taxonomy upfront.
Lint system — surfaces stale files, missing metadata, and orphaned docs on demand.
Multi-LLM support — bootstrap shims for Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, Windsurf, and others. One config, any tool.
Full comparison with the Karpathy pattern →
Quick Start
1. Create your copy. Click "Use this template" on GitHub. Make it private. Clone it.
git clone https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/my-wiki.git
cd my-wiki2. Set up your workspace. Open the repo as an Obsidian vault on one side, your AI agent on the other. You talk to the AI — it builds the wiki. You watch it happen in Obsidian.
Full Obsidian setup → · No Obsidian? Any editor + any supported AI tool works fine.
3. Fill in your profile. Open _config/config.md, fill in the About You section, and set Training Start Date to today.
4. Start talking. Open in your AI tool of choice and go:
"Capture this: here's how our onboarding process works..."
"We decided to use PostgreSQL over MongoDB, let me document why"
"What do we know about our deployment process?"
"Lint the wiki, what needs attention?"
That's it. The system adapts to what you actually need.
Want to stay updated as the framework improves? The template approach gives you a clean start but disconnects you from upstream. If you want to pull future improvements (new protocols, better training behavior, bug fixes), use the Framework Track setup instead.
What Makes This Different
It learns how you work. The first 30 days are a training period. Your AI asks questions, suggests directories, and logs what it learns. By day 45, it's quiet and efficient. You never design a taxonomy upfront. Full details →
Capture first, organize later. Everything lands in _inbox/ with a 7-day TTL. You never hesitate to capture because you don't have to decide where it goes yet. Your AI files it later.
Your README stays yours. This file has two sections split by a marker. Above it: your personal project README, maintained by your AI as the wiki evolves. Below it: the framework docs, which track upstream cleanly. You get living documentation without merge conflicts.
Patterns are captured as they emerge. When your AI learns a new convention or preference during a conversation, it writes it down immediately, not at commit time. Nothing is lost if you commit from the command line without AI involvement.
Every file is queryable. A metadata standard on every document means your AI can scan summaries and tags without loading full files. This scales to hundreds of documents.
It maintains itself. Lint checks surface stale files, missing metadata, and orphaned docs. The system even reviews its own instruction efficiency to prevent context window bloat as your wiki grows.
What You Can Do
| Say this | What happens |
|---|---|
| "Capture this: here's how we set up monitoring..." | Creates a file in _inbox/, offers to file it |
| "We decided to use Terraform over Pulumi, document why" | Decision record with context, options, rationale, and an outcome section to fill in later |
| "What do we know about our hiring process?" | Scans summaries, synthesizes an answer with source citations |
| "Lint the wiki" | Surfaces stale files, missing metadata, orphaned docs |
| "Start a new initiative: migrate to Kubernetes" | Project workspace with brief, timeline, artifact tracking |
| "Create a slide deck summarizing Q1 decisions" | Generates output in _output/, dated and organized |
These form a cycle. Capture feeds queries, queries inform decisions, decisions get tracked, lint keeps it all healthy. The system compounds over time.
Go Deeper
| Topic | What's there |
|---|---|
| Training Phases | How the system adapts to you over 30 days |
| Directory Structure | What each folder is for, why there are only 4 |
| Journal Sync & Privacy | Syncing 3-Journal/ across devices — plaintext, git-crypt, or external |
| Metadata Standard | The format that makes everything queryable |
| Supported Tools | Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, Windsurf, ChatGPT, and others |
| Obsidian Setup | Pre-configured vault, plugins, web clipper |
| Design Decisions | Why the system works the way it does |
| FAQ | Common questions |
| Linked Code Repos | Connect wiki project entries to real code repos — workspace files, context files, Obsidian plugin dev |
| Extending & Contributing | Customize locally vs. contribute upstream |
| Future Directions | Where this is headed |
| Philosophy | The deeper thinking behind the system |
The examples/ directory has four sample files showing the metadata standard in action. Read them, then delete them when you're comfortable.
Credits
Built on Andrej Karpathy's LLM Wiki Pattern. Implementation by Ariel Sakin, refined over several months of daily use managing business operations.
License
Apache 2.0. See LICENSE.
docs/faq.md
FAQ
How do I get upstream updates?
Two paths:
Quick Start (template) — what the README recommends. Clean start, no shared history. Fine if you set it up once and don't care about updates.
Framework Track — for users who want to pull improvements as the system evolves. Three extra steps upfront:
# 1. Clone directly (instead of "Use this template")
git clone https://github.com/asakin/llm-context-base.git my-wiki
cd my-wiki
# 2. Create an empty private repo on GitHub, then rewire remotes:
git remote rename origin upstream
git remote add origin https://github.com/YOU/my-wiki.git
git push -u origin main
# 3. Pull future updates:
git fetch upstream
git rebase upstream/main
git push --force-with-lease origin mainYour repo is fully independent (not a GitHub fork, not publicly linked). You just share git history with upstream, which is what makes rebase work cleanly.
On my first Claude Code session I saw something about a missing MEMORY.md. Is that an error?
No. Claude Code has a built-in memory system that stores notes about your project in a file outside the repo (~/.claude/projects/.../memory/MEMORY.md). On the very first session it tries to read that file, finds it doesn't exist yet, and creates it. You'll only see this once.
Does this work with local/smaller models (Ollama, etc.)?
Yes. All instructions are plain markdown, no special API calls or tool use required. Smaller models may need you to manually update the Current Phase field in _config/config.md rather than calculating it automatically, and may not follow the training behavior as precisely. The core value (metadata standard, directory structure, templates) works regardless of model capability.
Will my company's proxy or firewall block this? Can I use it at work?
There is nothing for a proxy to block. llm-context-base has zero runtime and generates no network activity of its own. It is a git clone of markdown files. After clone, the repo never touches the network: no telemetry, no phone-home, no CDN dependencies, no background processes, no analytics.
The only network-related question is whether your company allows the AI tool you use to read and write files (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, Windsurf, ChatGPT, etc.) — and that's the same question you'd face with or without this repo. If your AI tool works at work, llm-context-base works at work. The framework adds no additional surface a proxy could block.
This is a direct consequence of the substrate principle: the repo stays dumb, intelligence lives above it. See PHILOSOPHY.md → The Substrate Principle for the design rationale.
Why not just use [existing wiki tool]?
Most LLM wiki implementations focus on ingestion and retrieval. This system adds a training period that adapts the structure to your specific needs, templates battle-tested over months of daily use, an Obsidian-ready vault with graph visualization, and a lint system that keeps things healthy over time. It also works with any LLM, not locked to one provider.
How do I sync my journal (3-Journal/) across devices?
By default, 3-Journal/* is gitignored, so journal entries live only on the machine where you wrote them. That's safe for single-device users but breaks if you write on a laptop and read on a desktop. Three options with different privacy trade-offs are documented in journal-sync.md — the simplest is to remove the gitignore rule if your repo is private, and there are two more secure options if you'd rather not bet on repo privacy staying intact.
Should I use one vault for everything or split by domain?
Start with one. The cross-domain connections are where the most value emerges. A decision about tooling might reference a knowledge article about deployment which links to a project initiative. Splitting loses these connections. If it gets unwieldy, the training period will help you find the right boundaries.
Which Claude model should I use with this?
Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Opus 4.6. Both support 1M token context windows natively. Avoid using the deprecated context-1m-2025-08-07 beta header with older Sonnet models — it stops working April 30, 2026, and requests exceeding 200k tokens will error. If you're on an older model, upgrade to Sonnet 4.6.
Can I load more context at session start with MCP?
Yes. Claude Code's MCP integration now supports tool results up to 500,000 characters (set via _meta["anthropic/maxResultSizeChars"]). If you're building an MCP server to feed wiki content to Claude Code, you can advertise this limit to inject significantly more context at session start than was previously possible.
73 files
- .claude/CLAUDE.md
- .claude/settings.json
- .cursor/rules/bootstrap.mdc
- .cursorrules
- .github/copilot-instructions.md
- .gitignore
- .obsidian/app.json
- .obsidian/appearance.json
- .obsidian/core-plugins.json
- .obsidian/daily-notes.json
- .obsidian/graph.json
- .obsidian/snippets/llm-wiki.css
- .obsidian/templates.json
- .windsurfrules
- 1-Projects/README.md
- 1-Projects/_SHIPPED/.gitkeep
- 1-Projects/_parked/README.md
- 2-Knowledge/Decisions/.gitkeep
- 2-Knowledge/HowTo/.gitkeep
- 2-Knowledge/README.md
- 2-Knowledge/References/.gitkeep
- 2-Knowledge/log.md
- 3-Journal/README.md
- 4-Private/README.md
- ATTRIBUTION.md
- CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
- CONTRIBUTING.md
- LICENSE
- PHILOSOPHY.md
- README.md
- WIKI-LOG.md
- _config/config.md
- _config/context.md
- _config/standard.md
- _config/tools.md
- _inbox/README.md
- _meta/instructions/agent-write.md
- _meta/instructions/blog-posts/instructions.md
- _meta/instructions/definition-of-done.md
- _meta/instructions/general.md
- _meta/instructions/knowledge-lint.md
- _meta/instructions/knowledge-query.md
- _meta/instructions/optimization-review.md
- _meta/templates/blog-post.md
- _meta/templates/decision.md
- _meta/templates/inbox-capture.md
- _meta/templates/initiative.md
- _meta/templates/journal-entry.md
- _meta/templates/knowledge-article.md
- _meta/templates/meeting-notes.md
- _output/README.md
- _sources/.gitkeep
- _sources/README.md
- assets/.gitkeep
- assets/clipper-template.json
- docs/claude-code-setup.md
- docs/design-decisions.md
- docs/directory-structure.md
- docs/extending-and-contributing.md
- docs/faq.md
- docs/future-directions.md
- docs/journal-sync.md
- docs/linked-code-repos.md
- docs/llm-wiki-pattern.md
- docs/metadata-standard.md
- docs/obsidian-setup.md
- docs/supported-tools.md
- docs/training-phases.md
- examples/example-decision-record.md
- examples/example-inbox-capture.md
- examples/example-initiative.md
- examples/example-knowledge-article.md
- migrate-to-yaml-frontmatter.py
Advantages
- The system adapts to user patterns over a 30-day training period without requiring upfront taxonomy design. evidence: README.md
- Metadata standards on every document allow the AI to scan summaries and tags without loading full files, enabling scalability. evidence: README.md
- The inbox-first capture system allows for frictionless entry of information with a 7-day TTL for later filing. evidence: README.md
Limitations
- The template approach disconnects the user from upstream updates unless the Framework Track setup is used. evidence: README.md
Security
Risk level: No risk found
This brain runs
Agent instructions that run or fetch something (1)
.claude/CLAUDE.md:**Exception:** If the user's first message is a `/init` command or a meta question about the repo setup, complete that first — then run the Session Start Protocol on the next exchange.
Attribution and licence
- First committed by
asakin
- Publisher
- Ariel Sakin (Community)
- Source
- asakin/llm-context-base · commit 3c096ca
- Licence
- Apache License 2.0 (files served here)
- ATTRIBUTION.md (written by AutoGineer)
- Synced
- Contributors
- asakin, claude
AutoGineer is not affiliated with or endorsed by asakin.
Download
The ZIP holds the files AutoGineer serves, with ATTRIBUTION.md and the licence. Download llm-context-base.zip