A durable LLM Wiki should not treat every note as the same kind of memory. Raw evidence, first-pass summaries, reviewed concepts, reusable procedures, contradictions, and archives need different rules so the graph can compound without turning stale guesses into trusted facts.
raw sourcesource summaryconcept pagesynthesisrunbookarchive
Lifecycle states
| State | Meaning | Allowed action | User value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raw source | Original evidence preserved in raw/. |
Read and cite; do not rewrite. | Trust and recovery. |
| Source summary | First compiled page for one source. | Extract claims, entities, dates, contradictions, and update targets. | Searchable evidence notes. |
| Hot operating context | The small startup set a human or AI loads before work. | Keep current, concise, and checked for bloat. | Fast, safer task pickup. |
| Semantic page | Reviewed concept, entity, comparison, or glossary page. | Update only with source traces and review status. | Reusable reference content. |
| Procedural page | Runbook, checklist, or repeatable workflow. | Promote only after repeated use or human review. | Builder documentation. |
| Contradiction record | Visible unresolved disagreement between sources or pages. | Preserve until a human resolves or labels scope. | Credibility and auditability. |
| Cold archive memory | Historical handoff snapshots, long research, and old progress detail. | Store with hashes, summaries, and pointers; do not load by default. | Recoverability without startup overload. |
| Archive | Stale, superseded, or historical material. | Keep reachable but mark as not current guidance. | Prevents old pages from misleading readers. |
Promotion and demotion rules
PromoteA claim has evidence, is useful beyond one query, and has a natural target page.
HoldA claim is plausible but source-needed, contradicted, sensitive, or outside scope.
DemoteA page has stale sources, missing provenance, unresolved conflicts, or weak review state.
ArchiveThe page describes old behavior, old decisions, old benchmarks, or superseded procedures.
Confidence without false precision
Do not invent mathematical confidence scores for public pages unless the project actually measures them. A practical LLM Wiki can start with qualitative labels such as source-linked, reviewed, source-needed, contradicted, stale, and archived.
State transition rules
| From | To | Allowed when | Record |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raw source | Source summary | The source passes permission, identity, scope, extraction, and risk preflight. | Source summary plus log entry. |
| Source summary | Semantic page | The claim is useful beyond one source and has traceable support. | Concept/entity page, index update. |
| Semantic page | Runbook | The guidance is repeatable, reviewed, and safe to operationalize. | Runbook page with trigger, stop condition, and checks. |
| Any current page | Contradicted | A source or reviewer finds incompatible claims under the same scope. | Contradiction record and visible status. |
| Any current page | Archived | The page is superseded, historical, or no longer reliable as current guidance. | Archive marker and replacement link when available. |
Lifecycle lint checks
- List pages whose
last_revieweddate is older than the freshness rule for that topic. - List reviewed pages with no source trace or only a vague source summary.
- List pages that link to archived or contradicted pages without warning readers.
- List procedural pages that have never been used in a real task or review pass.
- List high-value pages with weak internal links to architecture, ingest, schema, or source policy routes.
Memory should move only when evidence changes. Query-time usefulness can suggest a promotion, but source status, contradiction state, and human review decide whether the claim becomes durable.
Hot context should shrink on purpose. When active instructions, progress, or decisions start carrying old rationale, preserve the old version in cold memory first, then keep the active file focused on what a new agent must know today.