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Eric Turner d8fabc5a50 docs: rename self-references from "LLM Wiki" to "memex"

Replace project self-references throughout README, SETUP, and the example
CLAUDE.md files. External artifact titles are preserved as-is since they
refer to the actual title of the Claude design artifact.

Also add a "Why 'memex'?" aside to the README that roots the project in
Vannevar Bush's 1945 "As We May Think" essay, where the term originates.
The compounding knowledge wiki is the LLM-era realization of Bush's
memex concept: the "associative trails" he imagined are the related:
frontmatter fields and wikilinks the agent maintains.

Kept lowercase where referring to the generic pattern (e.g. "an LLM wiki
persists its mistakes") since that refers to the class of system, not
this specific project.

2026-04-12 21:32:17 -06:00

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Global Claude Code Instructions — memex Section

What this is: Content to add to your global ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md (the user-level instructions Claude Code reads at the start of every session, regardless of which project you're in). These instructions tell Claude how to consult memex from outside the wiki directory.

Where to paste it: Append these sections to ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md. Don't overwrite the whole file — this is additive.

Copy everything below this line into your global ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md:

Wake-Up Context

At the start of each session, read ~/projects/wiki/context/wake-up.md for a briefing on active projects, recent decisions, and current concerns. This provides conversation continuity across sessions.

memex — When to Consult It

Before creating API endpoints, Docker configs, CI pipelines, or making architectural decisions, check the wiki at ~/projects/wiki/ for established patterns and decisions.

The wiki captures the why behind patterns — not just what to do, but the reasoning, constraints, alternatives rejected, and environment- specific differences. It compounds over time as projects discover new knowledge.

When to read from the wiki (query mode):

Creating any operational endpoint (/health, /version, /status)
Setting up secrets management in a new service
Writing Dockerfiles or docker-compose configurations
Configuring CI/CD pipelines
Adding database users or migrations
Making architectural decisions that should be consistent across projects

When to write back to the wiki (ingest mode):

When you discover something new that should apply across projects
When a project reveals an exception or edge case to an existing pattern
When a decision is made that future projects should follow
When the human explicitly says "add this to the wiki"

Human-initiated wiki writes go directly to the live wiki with origin: manual. Script-initiated writes go through staging/ first. See the wiki's own CLAUDE.md for the full ingest protocol.

memex — How to Search It

Use the qmd CLI for fast, structured search. DO NOT read index.md for large queries — it's only for full-catalog browsing. DO NOT grep the wiki manually when qmd is available.

The wiki has three qmd collections. Pick the right one for the question:

Default collection: `wiki` (live content)

For "what's our current pattern for X?" type questions. This is the default — no -c flag needed.

# Keyword search (fast, BM25)
qmd search "health endpoint version" --json -n 5

# Semantic search (finds conceptually related pages)
qmd vsearch "how should API endpoints be structured" --json -n 5

# Best quality — hybrid BM25 + vector + LLM re-ranking
qmd query "health endpoint" --json -n 5

# Then read the matched page
cat ~/projects/wiki/patterns/health-endpoints.md

Archive collection: `wiki-archive` (stale / superseded)

For "what was our OLD pattern before we changed it?" questions. This is excluded from default searches; query explicitly with -c wiki-archive.

# "Did we used to use Alpine? Why did we stop?"
qmd search "alpine" -c wiki-archive --json -n 5

# Semantic search across archive
qmd vsearch "container base image considerations" -c wiki-archive --json -n 5

When you cite content from an archived page, tell the user it's archived and may be outdated.

Conversations collection: `wiki-conversations` (mined session transcripts)

For "when did we discuss this, and what did we decide?" questions. This is the mined history of your actual Claude Code sessions — decisions, debugging breakthroughs, design discussions. Excluded from default searches because transcripts would flood results.

# "When did we decide to use staging?"
qmd search "staging review workflow" -c wiki-conversations --json -n 5

# "What debugging did we do around Docker networking?"
qmd vsearch "docker network conflicts" -c wiki-conversations --json -n 5

Useful for:

Tracing the reasoning behind a decision back to the session where it was made
Finding a solution to a problem you remember solving but didn't write up
Context-gathering when returning to a project after time away

Searching across all collections

Rarely needed, but for "find everything on this topic across time":

qmd search "topic" -c wiki -c wiki-archive -c wiki-conversations --json -n 10

memex — Rules When Citing

Always use --json for structured qmd output. Never try to parse prose.
Flag confidence: low pages to the user when citing. The content may be aging out.
Flag status: pending pages (in staging/) as unverified when citing: "Note: this is from a pending wiki page that has not been human-reviewed yet."
Flag archived pages as "archived and may be outdated" when citing.
Use index.md for browsing only, not for targeted lookups. qmd is faster and more accurate.
Prefer semantic search for conceptual queries, keyword search for specific names/terms.

memex — Quick Reference

~/projects/wiki/CLAUDE.md — Full wiki schema and operations (read this when working IN the wiki)
~/projects/wiki/index.md — Content catalog (browse the full wiki)
~/projects/wiki/patterns/ — How things should be built
~/projects/wiki/decisions/ — Why we chose this approach
~/projects/wiki/environments/ — Where environments differ
~/projects/wiki/concepts/ — Foundational ideas
~/projects/wiki/raw/ — Immutable source material (never modify)
~/projects/wiki/staging/ — Pending automated content (flag when citing)
~/projects/wiki/archive/ — Stale content (flag when citing)
~/projects/wiki/conversations/ — Session history (search via -c wiki-conversations)

End of additions for ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md.

See also the wiki's own CLAUDE.md at the wiki root — that file tells the agent how to maintain the wiki when working inside it. This file (the global one) tells the agent how to consult the wiki from anywhere else.

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