capture-knowledge

Overview

Capture knowledge from conversation context into docs/ as markdown nodes. Save immediately — asking confirmation interrupts flow and discourages capture.

Precondition: if triage has not run this session, run /autology:triage-knowledge first.

What Capture Targets

Capture the items triage classified as new (→ capture):

• Decisions made (technology choices, architectural choices)
• Components created or modified
• Conventions or patterns established
• Concepts or domain knowledge explained
• Issues or technical debt identified

When NOT to capture:

• Session-specific context (current task, temporary state)
• Incomplete or unverified information
• Items triage classified as existing (→ sync, not capture)

Quick Reference

Type	Signals
decision	"chose", "decided", "selected", "adopted"
component	"created", "built", "implemented", new service/module
convention	"always", "never", "must", "should", "the rule is"
concept	lifecycle, workflow, domain model, process
pattern	reusable approach, strategy, pattern
issue	bug, technical debt, bottleneck, known problem
session	work session summary, "finished", "completed"

type = primary classification (what kind?); tags = cross-cutting topics (what about?).

Process

1. Receive Triage Output

Use triage's new items list as the capture scope:

New items from triage (→ capture):
- [item description] — no matching node
  Suggested relations: [[foo]], [[bar]] (shared tags: architecture)
- [item description] — no matching node
  Suggested relations: none

2. Decide node granularity

Not every triage item needs its own file. Before creating, ask: does this item have enough standalone substance to be useful on its own, or is it a detail of something larger?

• Own node: has a distinct title, multiple meaningful sentences, likely to be linked or searched independently
• Decisions always get their own node — even if brief. A decision is "chose X over Y because Z": the rationale makes it independently searchable and worth linking from other contexts. E.g., "chose JWT over session cookies because we need a stateless API" → type: decision node, not a footnote in the component doc.
• Fold into parent: a pure behavior detail, edge case, or implementation consequence of another item in the same batch (e.g., "returns 401 on invalid token" is a consequence of the JWT middleware, not a choice made with rationale)

The deciding criterion is not length but kind: a choice made with rationale → own node; a behavioral detail of an implementation → fold. When folding, capture the detail in the parent node's body. This keeps the graph navigable — thin stub nodes add noise without adding reach.

3. Create Node

For each new item that warrants its own node, create docs/{title-slug}.md:

---
title: "Human Readable Title"
type: decision
tags: [tag1, tag2]
---

File naming: docs/{title-slug}.md — lowercase, hyphens, no special characters.

4. Add Relations

Use triage's suggested relations for wikilinks:

• Add [[title-slug]] wikilink in the new node's body text (wikilink target = filename without .md extension)
• Also Edit the related node to add the reverse [[title-slug]] wikilink

5. Report Result

> **Autology** — Captured [type]: docs/{slug}.md
> Tags: [tags] | Relations: [related nodes if any]

Common Mistakes

Mistake	Fix
Running capture without triage output	Triage classifies new vs existing — run it first.
Capturing items triage classified as existing	Those go to sync, not capture.
Ask user for confirmation before saving	Save immediately, then report.
Add wikilink only to new node	Also add reverse link to related node.