serena-wiki

Serena Wiki

A Claude Code plugin that builds and maintains a persistent, interlinked wiki of your codebase — powered by Serena.

Instead of rediscovering how your code works every session, Serena Wiki incrementally builds a structured knowledge base — architecture decisions, module relationships, code patterns, and the reasoning behind them. The wiki compounds over time: every scan, question, and update makes it richer.

All wiki pages are stored as Serena memories — Serena is the storage layer, the code analysis engine, and the CRUD interface. Everything goes through Serena.

Inspired by Karpathy's LLM Wiki pattern.

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Prerequisites

Serena is required. This plugin will not work without it. Install Serena first:

/plugin install serena@claude-plugins-official

Install

# Add the marketplace
/plugin marketplace add Snowtumb/Karpathy-serena-wiki

# Install the plugin
/plugin install serena-wiki@Karpathy-serena-wiki

# Reload
/reload-plugins

Quick Start

# 1. Initialize the wiki (creates Serena memories)
/wiki setup

# 2. Deep-scan your codebase
/wiki scan

# 3. Ask questions — wiki memories are consulted first
"How does authentication work in this project?"
"Why did we choose PostgreSQL?"
"What depends on the auth module?"

# 4. After making changes, update the wiki
/wiki update

# 5. Periodically check wiki health
/wiki lint

# 6. Add external documentation context
/wiki enrich

How It Works

Serena IS the wiki

Every wiki page is a Serena memory. Serena handles everything:

Operation	Serena Tool
Create a wiki page	write_memory
Read a wiki page	read_memory
Update a wiki page	edit_memory
Delete a wiki page	delete_memory
Browse the wiki	list_memories (topic: "wiki")
Search wiki + code	search_for_pattern
Analyze code symbols	get_symbols_overview, find_symbol
Trace dependencies	find_referencing_symbols

Memory organization

Wiki pages are organized with / topic separators:

wiki/
├── wiki/schema                    # Conventions (self-documenting)
├── wiki/index                     # Categorized catalog of all pages
├── wiki/log                       # Chronological record of operations
├── wiki/overview                  # Project purpose, tech stack, layout
├── wiki/architecture/system-design
├── wiki/architecture/data-flow
├── wiki/modules/auth
├── wiki/modules/api
├── wiki/patterns/error-handling
├── wiki/patterns/code-conventions
├── wiki/decisions/database-choice
└── wiki/external/react-docs

The three layers

1. Your code — the source of truth. Serena reads it but never modifies it.
2. The wiki (Serena memories) — persistent, interlinked knowledge pages. Architecture docs, module deep dives, pattern catalogs, decision records. The LLM writes and maintains all of it through Serena.
3. The skills (this plugin) — instructions that tell Claude how to build, query, and maintain the wiki using Serena's tools.

Skills

/wiki setup — Initialize

Creates wiki memories: schema, index, log, and a lightweight overview.

Triggers: "set up the wiki", "initialize wiki", "create a wiki for this project"

/wiki scan — Deep Codebase Analysis

6-phase scan using Serena's semantic analysis:

1. Discovery — maps structure via list_dir
2. Architecture — traces dependencies via find_referencing_symbols
3. Modules — catalogs symbols via get_symbols_overview
4. Patterns — finds recurring patterns via search_for_pattern
5. Decisions — infers ADRs from comments and structure
6. Index — rebuilds the catalog

Triggers: "scan the codebase", "build the wiki", "document the codebase"

wiki-query — Search and Ask

Reads wiki memories first, investigates code with Serena only if the wiki has gaps. Cites wiki pages. Suggests capturing new knowledge.

Triggers: "how does X work?", "why did we build X?", "what depends on X?"

/wiki update — Sync After Changes

Three modes: explicit, diff-based, conversational. Updates wiki memories via edit_memory.

Triggers: "update the wiki", "document what we just did", "record this decision"

/wiki lint — Health Check

Checks: staleness, orphan memories, missing cross-references, empty sections, coverage gaps. Offers auto-fix for mechanical issues.

Triggers: "lint the wiki", "wiki health check", "is the wiki up to date?"

/wiki enrich — External Context

Searches the web, writes external context pages as Serena memories, cross-references with internal pages.

Triggers: "enrich the wiki", "find relevant docs", "what do the official docs say?"

Design Principles