chemenu/instructions/wiki-query/SKILL.md

name, description

name	description
wiki-query	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.

   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:

   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.

   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.
• Several answers filed at once? That can trip the Mass-Update Gate - see 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?"