Skillful Alhazen
A TypeDB-powered agentic knowledge notebook — run interactively with Claude Code or deployed persistently via OpenClaw
Prototype software — APIs, schemas, and skill interfaces are subject to change without notice.
"The duty of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself an enemy of all that he reads, and, applying his mind to the core and margins of its content, attack it from every side."
— Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), 965–1039 AD
What is it?
Skillful Alhazen is an agentic curation system with knowledge graph memory. The agent reads scientific papers, disease databases, job postings, news articles, and more — building structured understanding in a TypeDB knowledge graph that persists across sessions and grows over time.
Three layers work together:
- Agent — Claude Code (interactive) or OpenClaw (persistent service). You talk; the agent curates.
- TypeDB — ontological memory. The schema defines the concepts the agent reasons about; the data is what it has learned so far.
- Skills — domain modules combining a TypeDB schema namespace, Python CLI scripts, and agent instructions. Each skill extends what the agent can do and remember in a specific domain.
Skills are not just prompts. Each skill contributes a typed schema namespace to the knowledge graph, a set of CLI commands the agent calls to read and write structured data, and (optionally) a Next.js dashboard for browsing what has been learned.
📖 Full documentation: github.com/GullyBurns/skillful-alhazen/wiki
Quick Start
Prerequisites: Claude Code, Docker, uv
git clone https://github.com/GullyBurns/skillful-alhazen
cd skillful-alhazen
make build # install deps + resolve skills + start TypeDB
claude # open Claude Code and start talking
Then just talk to Claude:
You: Search PubMed for papers about CRISPR delivery mechanisms and build a corpus
You: What are the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying Marfan syndrome?
You: Ingest this job posting: https://example.com/senior-ml-engineer
You: Remember that lipid nanoparticles are most effective for hepatic delivery
You: What skill gaps do I have across my top three job prospects?
Skills
Core Skills
Built into this repository (skills/ directory). Always available.
| Skill | What it does |
|---|
typedb-notebook | Core knowledge operations — remember facts, recall notes, create collections, tag entities, track schema gaps |
web-search | Web search via SearXNG (self-hosted metasearch, no API key needed) |
curation-skill-builder | Design and build new TypeDB-backed curation skills; 6-phase system design framework with TypeDB tracking |
tech-recon | Systematic investigation of software systems against user-defined success criteria |
External Skills
Resolved from sciknow-io/alhazen-skill-examples and custom repositories. Cloned into local_skills/ on make build-skills.
| Skill | Domain | What it does | Dashboard |
|---|
scientific-literature | Biomedical research | Multi-source literature search (Europe PMC, PubMed, OpenAlex, bioRxiv/medRxiv) + semantic search via Voyage AI + Qdrant | — |
alg-precision-therapeutics | Rare disease | Investigate disease mechanism of harm and therapeutic landscape from a MONDO diagnosis | ✓ |
literature-trends | Research analysis | Trace how explanatory hypotheses evolve over time in a tagged literature corpus | — |
they-said-whaaa | Journalism | Track consistency of public figures — ingest transcripts and articles, extract claims, detect contradictions | ✓ |
jobhunt | Career | Track job applications — ingest postings, fit analysis, skill gap identification | ✓ |
dismech | Disease mechanisms | Browse the DisMech knowledge graph (750+ curated disease mechanism entries) | — |
Three Ways to Run
| Mode | Setup | Best for |
|---|
| (A) Claude Code | make build && claude | Exploration, skill development, one-off research |
| (B) OpenClaw on Mac Mini | ./deploy/deploy.sh --target-type macmini | Persistent local service with Telegram triage |
| (C) OpenClaw on VPS | ./deploy/deploy.sh --target-type vps | Always-on, hardened production deployment |
See the Deployment guide for the A → B → C progression.
Architecture
