OpenKnowledge: Local-First Markdown Editor and LLM Wiki for Claude and Cursor

The LLM wiki pattern went from Andrej Karpathy's gist to Google's Open Knowledge Format in weeks. The missing piece for most teams was not the schema — it was a product: a editor that feels like Notion, stays local-first, and wires Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor without duct tape.

OpenKnowledge — from Inkeep, recently rebranded from "Open Knowledge" to OpenKnowledge — is that product. Open-sourced under GPL-3.0-or-later, at v0.18.0 with ~444 GitHub stars, it combines a WYSIWYG markdown editor, an LLM wiki with MCP and skills, and no-code GitHub team sync.

TL;DR

What OpenKnowledge Actually Is

OpenKnowledge is two things merged into one workflow:

1. A beautiful markdown editor — full WYSIWYG so editing .md files feels like Google Docs or Notion, not raw source mode.
2. An LLM wiki — structured knowledge your agents can search, edit, and maintain — with MCP, skills, and agentic search out of the box.

Inkeep's positioning: "Beautiful, AI-native markdown editor and LLM Wiki." That maps directly onto the three-layer pattern from Karpathy's gist: raw sources live in your repo, the wiki layer is agent-maintained markdown, and OpenKnowledge supplies the editor + harness integration that plain folders lack.

Key features

Recent repo activity (June 2026): interactive editor in the marketing hero, VS Code-style file-tree sidebar density, task-list checkbox fixes after editor transitions, and a rebrand pass from "Open Knowledge" to OpenKnowledge across docs and AGENTS.md.

October 3, 2026 installation update: The official repository now lists desktop installers for macOS Apple Silicon, Windows, and Linux; the CLI web-app path remains available across platforms. The version and activity figures above describe the original June snapshot.

Install

macOS (native app)

1. Download the latest release from GitHub Releases (v0.18.0)
2. Open the DMG, drag OpenKnowledge to Applications
3. Launch from Applications

This is the recommended path for Apple Silicon Macs.

Cross-platform CLI web app (including Intel Mac)

Requires Node.js 24+:

npm install -g @inkeep/open-knowledge
cd your-project
ok init          # scaffold project + wire Claude Code, Cursor, Codex
ok start --open  # serve web editor and open browser

ok init is the onboarding step that matters for agent users — it scaffolds the project structure and connects your harnesses so the wiki is not a dead folder of markdown.

OpenKnowledge vs Plain Markdown + Git

Compared to files.md — another local-first markdown philosophy — OpenKnowledge targets teams + agents rather than solo minimalism. Files.md rejects the "second brain" complexity; OpenKnowledge embraces agent-maintained wikis as the product.

Compared to Notion + Cursor integration — OpenKnowledge keeps data on your machine / your GitHub, not Notion's cloud, at the cost of self-hosting or running the CLI locally.

Where It Sits in the LLM Wiki Stack

Karpathy LLM Wiki gist (pattern)
        ↓
Google OKF v0.1 (interoperable spec)
        ↓
OpenKnowledge (editor + wiki product + agent wiring)
        ↓
Your agents (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, custom MCP)

If you are building an agent second brain or spec-driven development wiki:

• Start with Karpathy's pattern for ingest/query/lint semantics
• Add OKF conventions if you need cross-team bundles
• Run OpenKnowledge as the editor and sync layer your humans and agents share

For MCP fundamentals, see our Model Context Protocol guide.

Contributing and License

OpenKnowledge is GPL-3.0-or-later. Public PRs on GitHub are mirrored into Inkeep's internal monorepo for review and merge — automation via inkeep-oss-sync[bot]. Contributors must pass the CLA bridge gate documented in CLA.md.

This is a product company open-sourcing its editor stack, not a community-only repo — expect fast iteration (176 releases) with external contributions flowing through their mirror workflow.

Who Should Use OpenKnowledge

Good fit:

• Teams running Claude Code or Cursor who want a shared wiki agents can read and write
• Product/engineering groups doing spec-driven development in markdown
• Anyone who wants Notion-like editing without Notion's cloud
• macOS users wanting a native desktop app for LLM wikis

Less ideal:

• GPL-averse organizations (copyleft applies to derivatives)
• Users who want zero local setup — the CLI path requires Node 24+
• Solo note-takers who prefer minimal tools like files.md or plain Obsidian

Start with a small knowledge base you can verify

Create a pilot folder containing a few source documents and a handful of derived pages. Choose material you know well enough to review, such as onboarding instructions for one internal project. If you begin by importing every document the company has produced, you create a large maintenance problem before learning how the editor and agents interact.

Separate original sources from derived explanations. A wiki page can summarize a source, but it should link back to the specific document or section used. Keep the source date visible when a policy or technical detail can change. This lets a reader decide whether the summary still applies without trusting the agent's prose alone.

Ask an agent to answer one question from the pilot and identify the page it used. Then ask a question the folder cannot answer. The useful result is a grounded answer in the first case and an explicit gap in the second. A local wiki is not reliable merely because every file is under your control.

Decide which changes agents may make

Give the agent a narrow maintenance task, such as proposing an update to one setup page after a dependency change. Review the diff before expanding the task to the whole wiki. A fluent rewrite can remove a qualification, break a cross-link, or replace a precise instruction with a general one.

Keep important decisions and approved policies under a clear review process. An agent can draft a proposal, but should not silently convert an unresolved discussion into the official policy page. Mark the status of a page in a way both humans and agents can recognize.

The OpenKnowledge repository documents its editor and integration paths. Those tools supply a shared workspace; your team still needs a convention for draft, approved, stale, and superseded knowledge. Define that convention during the pilot so it does not become an afterthought.

Treat local storage and remote access as separate choices

Local-first describes where the working files live. If you connect a cloud model, the relevant content may still be sent to that model's provider during a request. Likewise, enabling GitHub synchronization adds another place where repository contents can reside. Inspect the actual integrations before describing the entire workflow as offline.

For sensitive material, document which agent, endpoint, and repository may receive it. Begin with harmless sample documents while checking the connection. A local editor does not by itself authorize every connected tool to read every folder.

Review access when the team changes. A person leaving a project may retain a local clone, while repository access can be revoked independently. The appropriate retention and access process depends on your organization; record ownership rather than assuming synchronization solves it.

Rehearse a conflicting edit

Have a human and agent propose changes to the same page in a disposable pilot. Inspect how the edits appear and how you resolve the disagreement. A synchronization feature transports changes; it cannot decide which contradictory statement is correct.

Keep the resolution with its source. If the conflict concerns a supported runtime version, cite the maintained project configuration or official documentation. If it concerns product policy, identify the responsible owner. That makes the final page useful to the next agent instead of merely recording whoever edited last.

Establish a maintenance rhythm

Review pages that receive frequent questions first. Track missing answers, stale source links, and repeated misunderstandings. Those observations provide a better update queue than asking an agent to regenerate every page on a schedule.

For the pilot, define completion as a small set of accurate pages, source-linked answers, and a known process for proposing changes. Test opening the folder without the original author present. If a teammate can find the answer and inspect why it is trustworthy, the wiki is supplying shared knowledge rather than a second collection of unexplained files.

Related explainx.ai coverage

Summary

OpenKnowledge v0.18.0 is Inkeep's open-source bet that LLM wikis need a real editor, not just a folder and a gist. WYSIWYG markdown, MCP and skills, agentic search, and one-command wiring for Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex — plus a macOS app and ok start for everyone else.

If Karpathy's wiki pattern gave agents a memory model, OpenKnowledge gives humans and agents a shared surface to maintain it.

Last updated: June 26, 2026. Version and features from github.com/inkeep/open-knowledge and openknowledge.ai/docs.