MultiPhysicsVault/wiki/questions/How does the LLM Wiki pattern work.md

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type	title	question	answer_quality	created	updated	tags	status	related	sources
question	How does the LLM Wiki pattern work?	How does the LLM Wiki pattern work and why is it better than RAG?	definitive	2026-04-07	2026-04-07	question llm-wiki knowledge-management	developing	LLM Wiki Pattern Compounding Knowledge Hot Cache index Wiki vs RAG

How does the LLM Wiki pattern work?

Question: How does the LLM Wiki pattern work and why is it better than RAG?

Answer

The LLM Wiki Pattern turns an LLM into a knowledge architect rather than a search engine.

Standard RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation): every query searches raw documents, retrieves chunks, and assembles an answer from scratch. Nothing is built up. Ask the same question twice — it does the same work twice.

The wiki pattern is different. When a source arrives, the LLM reads it and integrates it: updating entity pages, noting contradictions, adding cross-references. The synthesis is done once and persists. Every query benefits from all previous ingests.

The three layers

1. .raw/ — your source documents. Immutable. Claude reads, never modifies.
2. wiki/ — Claude-generated knowledge. Summaries, entities, concepts, synthesis.
3. CLAUDE.md — the schema. Tells Claude how the wiki is structured and what to do.

Why it compounds

See Compounding Knowledge for the full argument. The short version: each new source doesn't just add one page — it enriches 8-15 existing pages. The connections between pages are where the value lives, not the raw content itself.

The hot cache shortcut

Hot Cache (wiki/hot.md) is a ~500-word summary of recent context. New sessions read it first. Cross-project references read it first. It prevents re-reading the whole wiki just to answer "where were we?"

(Source: LLM Wiki Pattern)

Confidence

definitive — this is the core concept the entire vault demonstrates.