second-brain

README

2 min read

second-brain

A personal knowledge base maintained by Claude, following Andrej Karpathy’s LLM Wiki pattern.

The human curates sources and asks questions. Claude does the bookkeeping: ingesting sources, writing pages, maintaining cross-references, and keeping the wiki consistent.

Layout

second-brain/
├── CLAUDE.md     ← schema & operating instructions for Claude
├── index.md      ← catalog of all wiki pages with one-line summaries
├── log.md        ← append-only activity log (ingests, queries, lints)
├── sources/      ← raw, immutable inputs (articles, PDFs, notes, links)
└── wiki/         ← Claude-maintained knowledge pages
    ├── concepts/   ideas, frameworks, mental models
    ├── people/     notable people
    ├── projects/   ongoing or tracked projects
    ├── resources/  books, papers, tools, courses
    └── topics/     subject areas, domains

Start with index.md to browse what’s in the wiki.

How it works

Three core operations, all driven by Claude:

  • Ingest — Drop a source (file, link, or pasted text) and say “ingest this”. Claude reads it, creates or updates the relevant wiki pages, cross-references them, and logs the activity.
  • Query — Ask any question. Claude searches the wiki, synthesizes an answer, and cites the pages used. If the answer is worth preserving, it becomes a new or updated page.
  • Lint — Ask for a “health check” and Claude finds orphan pages, contradictions, stale claims, and gaps worth filling.

Page format

Every wiki page follows a consistent structure: one-sentence summary, overview, key points, [[double-bracket]] connections to related pages (Obsidian-compatible), and sources. See CLAUDE.md for the full schema.

Adding sources

  1. Save a file to sources/ (or paste content directly in chat).
  2. Tell Claude: “ingest this” or “add this to the wiki”.
  3. Claude updates the wiki and appends an entry to log.md.

Source files are immutable — never edited once added. The wiki is the curated, synthesized layer on top.

Conventions

  • Dates: YYYY-MM-DD
  • Filenames: kebab-case.md
  • Internal links: [[wiki/category/page-name]]
  • Index summaries: ≤ 15 words
  • Cross-reference liberally — the graph is the value

Graph View