Example Source: AI Knowledge Base Field Notes.

This source note demonstrates how to keep raw material readable while preserving enough structure for search, graph links, and later synthesis.

Why This Template Exists

A useful knowledge base makes capture cheap and retrieval trustworthy.

The framework treats Markdown files as the durable source of truth. Each formal note carries a domain, a type, a workflow status, tags, and source links.

The starter intentionally keeps example content small, but the source pattern scales to longer research notes. A source note can hold excerpts, summary context, and follow-up prompts without pretending to be a finished article.

Use this section to record why the material entered the knowledge base. Future readers should understand whether the source is evidence, inspiration, a transcript, or a temporary placeholder.

Capture Before Structure

Raw material belongs in content/01-sources/ when it comes from an article, podcast, conversation, transcript, dataset, or internal document.

The first pass should preserve provenance. Add enough metadata to find the original material, then defer interpretation until a question or topic note exists.

When a capture is still unclear, keep it in inbox. When the material has an external origin and should remain available, move it into sources.

Link Notes Across Workflow

The same source can feed a question, a study note, and a publishable draft. Keep those links explicit with frontmatter fields such as sources, questions, related, and source_topic.

Links make the graph useful because each note describes how it depends on other notes. They also protect context when a synthesis draft becomes more polished than its original source.

This section is long enough to exercise the reading progress and table-of-contents tracking in the UI. Real source notes often have multiple excerpts, so the interface should keep the current section visible while a reader scrolls.

Publish When Stable

Move stable ideas toward content/04-collected/ or content/90-output/ only after the evidence chain is clear.

The output stage should be boring. A note becomes publishable after its sources, related questions, and claims already make sense in the private workspace.

Use study notes for drafts that still need structure. Use collected notes for durable concepts that can support multiple future drafts.

What evidence would make this note more useful next week?