knowledge-synthesize
/octopus:knowledge-synthesize traverses a knowledge root and surfaces the
connections between nodes that manual recall misses — related documents that
never link each other, recurring topics with no home page, and the
forgotten-but-relevant note from six months ago.
What it solves
A knowledge base is worth more than the sum of its nodes only if something traverses it. Left alone, every root becomes a silo: documents accumulate, topics recur across multiple pages without connecting, and past decisions become invisible to new work. The problem is not that the information is missing — it is that the links between pieces are never made explicit.
knowledge-synthesize runs that traversal systematically. It finds which nodes
relate via a shared reference, which topics appear everywhere without a dedicated
page, and — when you’re focused on a specific node — which older nodes are most
relevant to your current work.
How it works
The mechanical candidate-finding runs in the octopus synthesize core, which
reads nodes and links from the knowledge root registry. The skill adds the
judgment the core cannot make: which candidates are real connections worth
surfacing, and where a node contradicts an authority it cites.
Three signal types are produced, each as a structured line:
- shared-target — two nodes that both link the same third node. They relate via that shared reference even if they never link each other directly. Score is the size of the shared-target intersection.
- co-mention — an entity (a term, name, or concept) that recurs across multiple nodes but has no node of its own. A recurring topic without a home.
- relevant — (with
--node) other nodes ranked by shared-entity overlap with the focus node. The forgotten-but-relevant lookup.
Contradiction detection is yours to judge: the core surfaces a node together with the authorities it links (ADRs, specs). You read both and determine whether the node asserts something the authority negates, then report it with the citing line.
--fix seeds a missing relative link only when an entity mention resolves to
exactly one node title — unambiguous, not already present. Multi-target or fuzzy
matches stay report-only.
Usage & parameters
/octopus:knowledge-synthesize [--root <id>] [--node <path>] [--fix]--root <id>— one root (e.g.docs,memory,consigliere); default: every resolved root.--node <path>— forgotten-but-relevant lookup: find other nodes ranked by shared-entity overlap with this specific node.--fix— seed a missing link where a mention resolves to exactly one node; the edit is a plain append, revertible withgit revert.