---
name: wiki-query
description: Answer a question using the LLM wiki's compiled knowledge - read-only, cites sources, can file a valuable answer back as a new page. Use when the user asks a question about entities, projects, concepts, or anything the wiki might know, or says "query the wiki", "what do we know about X", "search the wiki".
---

# Wiki Query

**Purpose:** Answer a question using the wiki's compiled knowledge.

**Trigger:** User asks a question.

**Hard rule:** read-only with respect to wiki *content*. Never modify, hand-edit, or scaffold a
page while answering. Two exceptions, both mechanical: step 5 (filing a valuable answer through
`wikitool new`, never by hand) and step 6 (one audit entry via `wikitool log append`). If the
wiki has no confident source, say so - per AGENTS.md's "never file an unsourced answer"
invariant - rather than synthesizing a plausible-sounding answer from general knowledge.

## Steps

1. **Understand the question.** Clarify intent if ambiguous.

2. **Search.** Do **not** read `kb/index.md`; it is a map of counts and pointers, not a
   catalog, and reading the shards costs more than searching them.

   ```bash
   tools/wikitool search "<the user's terms>"
   ```

   Results carry kind, summary, confidence and modified date - enough to decide what is worth
   opening. Narrow with predicates when the question is structural rather than lexical:

   ```bash
   tools/wikitool search "backup" --kind entity --subtype system
   tools/wikitool search --field entity_type=system --field 'confidence<0.6' --sort -modified
   tools/wikitool search --field tags=k8s --limit 30
   tools/wikitool search "Longhorn" --matches      # show the matching lines
   ```

   `search` is read-only and exempt from the iteration budget, so searching again is always
   cheaper than reading more.

3. **Read only the pages the search points at**, then follow their `related:` and `sources:`
   entries. Check `kb/sources/` when the question is about what a specific source said.

4. **Answer and cite.** Name the wiki pages the answer came from, and the sources behind them.
   Hedge to the page's confidence: below 0.6 write "possibly"/"may"; below 0.4 write
   "uncertain"/"unconfirmed".

5. **File it back, if it earns a page.** Only when the answer required synthesis across several
   pages, revealed something not already written down, and will be asked again. Then scaffold
   it - `tools/wikitool new ...` - and follow `wiki-manage`. Never write the page by hand, and
   never file an answer no source backs.

6. **Log it.**

   ```bash
   tools/wikitool log append --op query --title "<question>" --body "<outcome>"
   ```

## Decision points

- **Nothing found?** Try the structural query before concluding the wiki is silent - a page may
  exist under different words. Then say the wiki has no confident source, and offer to ingest
  one.
- **Filed a page?** Query does **not** auto-publish. Run `tools/wikitool publish` only if asked;
  the sequence is in [publish-cycle.md](../publish-cycle.md).
- **Several answers filed at once?** That can trip the Mass-Update Gate - see
  [gates.md](../gates.md).

## wikitool commands used

`search`, `log append`. If filing an answer back: `new`, `xref add`, `sources rebuild-index`,
`index rebuild`.

## Output

An answer in chat, with citations. Occasionally a new page.

**Example queries:**

- "What projects use MQTT?"
- "Show me the architecture of HA Integration"
- "Compare gdeploy and plugnburn-edl"
- "What decisions were made about E3DC integration?"