llm-obsidian-wiki

The Problem

LLMs lose all context between sessions. RAG systems re-derive knowledge from raw documents on every query, spending tokens to rediscover what was already known. In 2025, Andrej Karpathy proposed a different approach: have the LLM incrementally build and maintain a persistent wiki -- structured, interlinked markdown that compounds over time. The idea sparked a 400+ comment discussion drawing on the Zettelkasten tradition and digital garden movement.

This plugin turns that idea into a working system. It is a Claude Code plugin with 4 task-oriented agents, 7 internal workflow skills, 2 slash commands, and 27 utility scripts that automate the full capture / research / answer / audit / maintain loop inside an Obsidian vault. Knowledge is compiled once and kept current -- not re-derived on every query.

What's new in v0.4.0

• Agent-first UX — talk to the system in natural language; Claude triggers the right agent
• Extended personas with voice / vocabulary / anti-patterns / litmus tests
• Sonnet-only for token economy
• defuddle → trafilatura → r.jina.ai privacy-first web→md stack (cloud opt-in)
• hot.md rolling 500-word session cache
• Tree topology lints — index ≤100 links, hubs ≤15 members
• Confidence + supersession in frontmatter
• Claim-level citations with raw quotes and anchors
• Forgetting curve for stale-page detection

[!IMPORTANT] Trust and transparency

• Local-only: All data stays in your Obsidian vault on your machine. No cloud sync, no external storage.
• No telemetry: No analytics, no usage tracking, no phone-home behavior of any kind.
• Network access: Only capture scripts (capture-url.sh, capture-youtube.sh, capture-github.sh) make network requests, and only to URLs you explicitly provide.
• What it creates: Files in raw/, wiki/, index.md, log.md, wiki.config.md, and .obsidian/ config -- all inside your vault.
• Uninstall: /plugin remove llm-obsidian-wiki@ignromanov -- your vault data remains untouched.

Install

Prerequisites: Claude Code, Obsidian, Obsidian CLI

From the Claude Code plugin marketplace:

# Add the marketplace source
/plugin marketplace add ignromanov/llm-obsidian-wiki

# Install the plugin
/plugin install llm-obsidian-wiki@ignromanov

Or load directly from a local clone:

git clone https://github.com/ignromanov/llm-obsidian-wiki.git
claude --plugin-dir /path/to/llm-obsidian-wiki

See It Work

$ claude

> /wiki:init

  What is the project/wiki name? ml-research
  Which page types? (all 10 selected)
  Which raw source directories? (defaults: knowledge, specs, meetings, docs, external, inbox)
  Which capture tools are installed? defuddle, trafilatura

  Wiki vault "ml-research" created successfully.
  Files: CLAUDE.md, wiki.config.md, index.md, hot.md, log.md
  Next: open the vault in Obsidian, add your first source.

> "research karpathy llm wiki pattern"

  [wiki-researcher]
  Capturing: https://gist.github.com/karpathy/442a6bf555914893e9891c11519de94f
  Saved: raw/external/2026-04-11-karpathy-llm-wiki-pattern.md

  Compiling wiki pages...
  Created: wiki/sources/src-karpathy-llm-wiki-pattern.md
  Created: wiki/concepts/llm-wiki-pattern.md  (confidence: high, 3 sources)
  Created: wiki/concepts/compounding-knowledge.md
  Updated: index.md, hot.md, log.md

> "how does compounding knowledge differ from RAG?"

  [wiki-advisor]
  Searching wiki... 3 pages found, reading 2...

  RAG re-derives answers from raw documents on each query, paying full token
  cost every time. The LLM Wiki pattern ([[llm-wiki-pattern]]) compiles
  knowledge once into structured [[compounding-knowledge]] pages maintained
  incrementally. Subsequent queries read the compiled wiki instead of
  re-processing raw sources.

  Sources: [[src-karpathy-llm-wiki-pattern]], [[compounding-knowledge]]

> "clean up the wiki"

  [wiki-curator]
  Running health checks...
  ✓ No orphaned pages
  ✓ No broken wikilinks
  ⚠ 1 stale page detected: wiki/concepts/compounding-knowledge.md (90 days)
  Auto-fixed: index drift resolved
  Report saved: log.md

Quick Start