Knowledge Vault
A local, LLM-powered knowledge base with academic collection via MCP.
Collect from research databases. Ingest sources. Compile a wiki. Query your knowledge. Browse in Obsidian.
Built on ideas from Andrej Karpathy's LLM knowledge base approach, the agno-agi/pal architecture, and the farzaa/wiki pattern.
What It Does
Knowledge Vault is a Claude Code plugin that turns any project directory into a structured knowledge base. v2 adds batch academic collection from research databases via MCP servers.
flowchart LR
subgraph collect ["Academic Collection"]
P["PubMed"]
X["arXiv"]
S["Scholar Gateway"]
CO["Consensus"]
PS["Paper Search\n(14 databases)"]
end
collect -->|"/knowledge-vault:collect"| R["raw/\n.manifest.json\nsources.json"]
A["URLs, files,\nnotes, clips"] -->|"/knowledge-vault:ingest"| R
CL["Obsidian\nWeb Clipper"] -->|auto| CLP["Clippings/"]
CLP -->|"/knowledge-vault:process"| R
R -->|"/knowledge-vault:compile"| W["wiki/\nsummaries/\nconcepts/\nindex.md"]
W -->|"/knowledge-vault:query"| ANS["Grounded\nAnswers"]
W -->|"/knowledge-vault:lint"| H["Health\nReport"]
W -->|browse| O["Obsidian\nGraph View"]
Claude maintains all wiki content. You browse and query -- never edit directly.
Install
New install
Step 1 — Add the marketplace (one time only):
/plugin marketplace add psypeal/claude-knowledge-vault
Step 2 — Install the plugin:
/plugin install knowledge-vault@claude-knowledge-vault
Step 3 — Reload:
/reload-plugins
No config, no dependencies, no API keys.
Uninstall
/plugin uninstall knowledge-vault@claude-knowledge-vault
To uninstall from a specific scope, use the /plugin Installed tab — select the plugin and choose Uninstall.
Migrating from v1 (skill)
Existing vaults are untouched — the .vault/ directory format is unchanged.
# 1. Remove the old skill
rm -rf ~/.claude/skills/knowledge-vault
Then in Claude Code:
/plugin marketplace add psypeal/claude-knowledge-vault
/plugin install knowledge-vault@claude-knowledge-vault
/reload-plugins
# 3. Done — your existing .vault/ directories work as-is
See Migration for full details.
Quick Start
> /knowledge-vault:init
Vault initialized at .vault/
Let me configure your vault preferences.
What domain is this vault for?
> Neuroimaging and neurodegeneration research
Preferences saved to .vault/preferences.md
Tip: Run /knowledge-vault:setup-sources to configure academic databases.
> /knowledge-vault:setup-sources
Detected:
PubMed (Claude.ai built-in) active
Scholar Gateway (Claude.ai built-in) active
Available to add:
Consensus claude mcp add --transport http consensus https://mcp.consensus.app/mcp
arXiv claude mcp add arxiv-mcp-server -- uvx arxiv-mcp-server ...
Paper Search claude mcp add paper-search -- npx -y paper-search-mcp-nodejs
Which servers would you like to add?
> Consensus and arXiv
Added 2 servers. Sources saved to .vault/sources.json
> /knowledge-vault:collect tau PET imaging neurodegeneration --since 2023
Searching PubMed, Scholar Gateway, Consensus, arXiv...
| # | Title | Source | Date | Type |
|---|-----------------------------------------------|----------|------|--------|
| 1 | Tau PET imaging in early Alzheimer's disease | PubMed | 2024 | paper |
| 2 | Longitudinal tau accumulation in subcortical... | Consensus| 2023 | paper |
| 3 | Second-generation tau tracers: a review | arXiv | 2024 | review |
Which to ingest? (all / 1,3 / none)
> all
Ingested 3 sources. 3 pending compilation.
> /knowledge-vault:compile
Compiled 3 sources. Extracted 7 concepts:
tau-pet-imaging, neurodegeneration, alzheimers-disease, tau-tracers,
subcortical-tau, longitudinal-imaging, amyloid-tau-interaction