haowjy/cw/skills/kb-management

KB Management

The knowledge base (kb/) is the project's durable memory. Every agent reads from it for context. This skill covers how to maintain it well.

Layers

Canon: established facts the story has committed to. Once a chapter is published/finalized, the facts it establishes are canon. Contradicting canon breaks reader trust.

Wiki: synthesized reference pages. How the magic system works, character relationships, faction politics. Living documents that evolve as the story develops.

Styles: voice reference files derived from prose samples. The writer and critic agents depend on these for voice consistency.

Vocab: canonical story terms, aliases, and exclusions. Project-wide terms live in kb/vocab.md; domain terms live beside the domain they govern, such as kb/world/vocab.md.

Issues: tracked writing problems that span multiple chapters (recurring tics, pacing patterns, continuity errors). See the writing-issues skill.

Page Conventions

One Concept Per Document

Each doc covers one coherent topic: one character, one location, one system. When a doc covers two unrelated topics, split it. When two docs explain the same thing from different angles, merge or cross-reference.

Name files by what they describe (fire-magic.md, protagonist.md), not when they were written (session-3-notes.md).

Organization

kb/
  characters/
    <name>.md              # one file per character
  vocab.md                 # project-wide canonical terms
  world/
    vocab.md               # worldbuilding terms when needed
    <topic>.md             # locations, factions, systems
    <domain>/
      vocab.md             # subdomain terms when needed
      <topic>.md           # nest when a domain has many pages
  timeline/
    <arc-or-period>.md     # chronological entries
  canon/
    <chapter-or-arc>.md    # hard facts per chapter/arc
  styles/
    <style-name>.md        # voice reference files
  issues/
    <issue-name>.md        # tracked writing problems

The project's CLAUDE.md may customize this. Read it first.

Linking

Link to related pages with relative paths. Cross-reference instead of duplicating: one source of truth per concept. A character page links to the location page for their home, the timeline entry for their arc, etc.

Readability

Write pages that work in isolation:

• Self-contained: enough context that a reader doesn't need three other pages first
• Scannable: headers, bullets, tables. Bold key terms on first use.
• Concrete: specific quotes, chapter references, scene citations
• Current: update when the story invalidates or extends what's here

Vocab Pages

Use vocab pages when terms matter across agents: magic names, faction labels, place names, titles, relationship labels, invented words, recurring in-world phrases, and genre terms with project-specific meanings.

Each entry should include:

• Canonical name: the form agents should use
• Definition: one to three sentences, including what the term is not when ambiguity is likely
• Aliases: names the author, characters, drafts, or older kb pages actually use
• Source: where the usage was established or decided

Resolve conflicts early. If two terms seem to name the same thing, pick the canonical form with the author or flag it in the report instead of carrying both forward silently.

When to Create vs Update

Create a new page when a concept is finalized enough to be referenced by other agents. Don't create pages for things still in brainstorming.

Update an existing page when new chapters establish facts about it, when the author makes decisions that change it, or when a page has become stale.

Split when a page grows past ~200 lines or covers multiple unrelated concepts.

What Belongs in KB vs Work

• Finalized knowledge → kb/
• Draft iterations, brainstorm captures, critique reports → work/
• Promoted facts after a draft completes → kb/canon/ or relevant wiki page

The chronicler agent handles routine extraction from completed chapters. Direct kb edits are for the author or muse when capturing decisions interactively.