Knowledge OS project

Why this exists

Knowledge OS exists because research should compound instead of evaporating into chat logs, browser tabs, and one-off notes.

The project is not trying to be a generic CMS. It is a public memory surface: a way to turn selected Obsidian notes, recurring Hermes research jobs, and GBrain-backed search into something visitors can browse, cite, and ask questions against.

How it works

This page intentionally mirrors the canonical explanation in how-it-works. The source of truth is still the Obsidian vault. The website is the public projection.

1. Capture in Obsidian. Patrick keeps private and working notes in the vault. The public site only reads explicitly configured source folders.
2. Sync selected sources. brain.config.ts currently publishes Investment analysis, AI news, and Knowledge into the repo's content/ tree.
3. Build the public layer. The build creates static pages and public/search-manifest.json for fallback retrieval.
4. Ship through GitHub and Vercel. GitHub is the versioned deploy trigger; Vercel serves the Next.js app.
5. Ask the public memory. The homepage Ask UI calls /api/ask. If GBRAIN_URL is configured, the API uses GBrain semantic search first; otherwise it falls back to the static manifest.

Current public surfaces

Surface	Status	Role
/ homepage Ask	Implemented	Primary public question interface
/api/ask	Implemented	GBrain-first retrieval with manifest fallback
/blog	Implemented	Published essays, AI news, and industry analysis
/knowledge	Implemented	Short synthesized field notes
/projects	Implemented	Curated operating systems behind the site
/ask standalone page	Not implemented by design	Returns 404; Ask lives on the homepage

For the semantic-memory layer, see the companion blog post: what-is-gbrain.

Design choices

• Vault first, repo second. Obsidian stays useful as a private working environment; the site remains a clean public projection.
• Curated projects, not session dumps. Projects now describe operating loops, not every historical Hermes session artifact.
• High-level deployment story. The public explanation emphasizes Obsidian, Hermes, GBrain, GitHub, and Vercel instead of documenting raw command sequences.
• Visible artifact metadata. Blog and project pages expose published date, last updated date, and version so readers can tell whether a page is fresh or revised.

Status

Live and actively maintained. The June 2026 refresh removed Clips from primary navigation, narrowed Projects to the three core operating loops, documented the exact Ask implementation status, and aligned this project page with /how-it-works so the public story does not diverge.