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okf-gem (okf on RubyGems or Docker) gives your project's knowledge one durable home in your repo, in Markdown your team and your agents both read: the decisions and the reasoning an agent cannot re-derive from the code, versioned beside the code they explain.

One install carries the whole workflow, and that is the point of a single gem:

• an Agent Skill, so your agent writes and curates the knowledge instead of you;
• a CLI and Ruby library, so it stays correct: validated, linted, and searchable in milliseconds;
• a Graph, so anyone can see the shape of what the team knows, live or as one static file you can host anywhere.

The package is Agent Skill + CLI/Lib + Graph. It runs 100% local, adds no service to your stack, and does not define a new place to keep knowledge: it gives you leverage over the Markdown you already have.

Why OKF

Project knowledge (why a service exists, what a metric really measures, the reasoning a schema encodes) lives scattered across wikis, code comments, and whoever happened to be in the room, and an agent re-derives it every session. OKF gives it one durable, diffable home, versioned next to the code it describes and read from the same file by people and agents alike. OKF is an open, vendor-neutral format (Google Cloud, 2026); this gem is the Ruby-native way to work with it.

Knowledge already has several homes near an agent, and each holds a different thing. None of the others is built for curated, durable team knowledge:

	OKF bundle (this)	CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md	Agent auto-memory	Wiki / Notion
Holds	curated team knowledge	standing instructions	what one agent picked up	human docs
Versioned with the code	✅	✅	❌	❌
Portable across agents	✅ plain Markdown + YAML	⚠️ per-harness conventions	❌ per-agent store	⚠️ export needed
Typed and queryable	✅ frontmatter + graph	❌ prose	❌	⚠️ partially
Reviewed in PRs	✅	✅	❌ implicit	⚠️ rarely
Scales past one context window	✅ progressive disclosure (okf index + search)	❌ loaded whole	⚠️ partially	n/a
Checked by tooling	✅ exit codes for CI (okf validate + lint)	❌	❌	❌

The last two rows are this gem's job. Scaling past one context window is progressive disclosure — okf index reads the map, okf search pulls only the concepts a task needs, so the bundle is never loaded whole. And drift never hides here: the other homes have no detector, but okf validate and lint turn a bundle's drift into findings you can gate on in CI.

What a bundle looks like

A bundle is just a directory; each concept is one Markdown file whose path is its id. This repo documents itself in OKF, so the tree below is real:

.okf/
├── index.md                       # progressive-disclosure map (root carries okf_version)
├── log.md                         # ISO-dated change history, newest first
├── overview.md
├── format/frontmatter.md
├── model/graph.md
└── capabilities/graph-server.md   # one concept = one file

The only hard requirement is YAML frontmatter with a non-empty type; everything else is optional and tolerated when missing. A concept (here the real capabilities/graph-server.md, body trimmed) reads:

---
type: Capability
title: Interactive graph server (server)
description: A self-contained HTML knowledge graph served over HTTP, and a mountable Rack app.
resource: lib/okf/server/app.rb
tags: [server, graph, rack, diagram]
timestamp: 2026-07-11T12:00:00Z
---

# Overview

`okf server` boots an interactive view of the [graph](../model/graph.md) …

That bundle is this gem's own documentation. Clone the repo and run okf server .okf to browse it as an interactive graph.

Try it in four steps

From zero to your first bundle.

1. Get the okf command. Two ways in; either one puts okf on your PATH.

gem install okf                                        # with Ruby
curl -fsSL https://docker.okfgem.com/install.sh | sh   # no Ruby? Docker

2. Install the skill. Teach your agent the format — Claude Code, or any other agent.

okf skill .claude   # or: okf skill .agents

3. Start an agent session where your project lives.

claude

4. Make your first bundle. Two ways in, by what you already have: docs keep every word, code gets written up for you.

/okf migrate <path-to-your-docs>            # have docs? adopted in place, bodies verbatim
/okf produce based on <path-to-your-code>   # only code? the skill authors the concepts

[!TIP] Once you have a bundle, run /okf maintain in the agent session to keep it in sync as the code changes, and okf server <folder> to explore it as a graph. In Claude Code, the plugin adds a post-edit curation hook that runs validate + lint for you.

The package, end to end:

What the gem does, and which verb does it. This table is the map; the docs are the manual.

Capability	What it answers	Verb
Companion agent skill	Can an agent author it?	skill
Conformance validator	Is this a legal OKF bundle?	validate
Curation linter	Is it navigable, complete, fresh?	lint / loose
Ranked text search	Which concept covers X?	search
Read views	What is in here, and where?	index / dirs / catalog
Interactive graph server	Can I explore it visually?	server
Static render	Can I ship a serverless snapshot?	render
Library API	Can my Ruby program use it?	in-process

And because knowledge rarely lives in one bundle, a per-user registry gives each bundle a name: okf registry set ./docs once, then @docs works anywhere a <dir> does — from any directory — and a bare okf server hosts every registered bundle behind one hub.

[!TIP] Browse the gem as knowledge, not just docs. This README is the front door; the depth lives in the .okf/ bundle this repo ships. Start at the overview, then follow the graph into the capabilities (what it does), the design constraints (why it stays this light), and the format itself (what it operates on). Run okf server .okf to walk the same bundle as an interactive graph.

It installs on the Ruby your OS already ships — every Ruby since 2.4, three small dependencies, no native extension and no build step — so there is nothing to provision and nothing to keep up to date. The design constraints that hold that line are enforced by tests on every supported Ruby.

Installation

In Claude Code, the plugin is the fastest path: two commands install the whole toolchain (skill, /okf:gem, and the curation hook). See Claude Code plugin. Everywhere else, install the gem:

gem install okf
# or, in a project
bundle add okf

Tested and supported on every Ruby from 2.4 through 4.0. From a checkout, bundle exec rake install builds and installs it locally.

No Ruby? Use Docker

The official image bundles the CLI, so every okf command runs against a bundle you mount at /data:

docker run --rm -v "$PWD:/data" ghcr.io/serradura/okf validate .
docker run --rm -v "$PWD:/data" -p 8808:8808 ghcr.io/serradura/okf server . --bind 0.0.0.0

Tired of the long line? The Docker-backed okf command drops the prefix so every verb reads exactly like the native CLI:

curl -fsSL https://docker.okfgem.com/install.sh | sh   # PowerShell: irm https://docker.okfgem.com/install.ps1 | iex
okf validate .
okf server .

Images are published for linux/amd64 and linux/arm64 on ghcr.io.

Where to go next

Installed. The rest of this page is each surface the gem gives you over a bundle, in the order most people meet them:

• The graph — the whole bundle on one page, live or baked into a single HTML file you can host anywhere. Start here if you want to see it.
• Agent skill — the verbs your agent runs to author, maintain and answer from a bundle, so you stay the editor rather than the typist.
• Claude Code plugin — that skill, a slash command and a post-edit curation hook, in two lines.
• Command line — every view as scannable text or as JSON, with exit codes stable enough to gate CI on.
• Library — OKF::Bundle in your own Ruby, and the graph as a Rack app you can mount in an app you already have.
• Extending okf — ship a verb as a gem, and what the page does and does not trust in a bundle you did not write.

Full reference for every verb and flag lives in the docs.

The graph

The graph server on this repo's own .okf bundle, with the overview concept selected. Try it live at demo.okfgem.com.

One page, from a phone to a desktop: the navigation rail becomes a drawer, the toolbar folds into a ⚙ sheet, and a tap opens a preview card at the bottom edge rather than a panel over the whole viewport, so the graph stays live while you read. Drag the card up for the neighbourhood, tap a link and it walks there in place.

It is keyboard-first: ⌘/Ctrl-K opens a command palette that searches concepts, jumps to a view, and — behind a hub — switches bundles. / jumps to the current view's search, ? answers with every shortcut. Cluster mode boxes the graph by directory and nests as deep as your tree does.

To skip the server entirely, okf render <dir> writes that same page as one self-contained HTML file, the whole bundle baked in, so you can publish the graph on GitHub Pages or any static host.

One registry, many bundles

The registry is a per-user, ordered list of bundles in one plain JSON file ($OKF_HOME/registry.json, default ~/.okf) — hand-editable, greppable, no database. It stores references, never content: the bundles stay in the repos that own them.

okf registry set ./docs --as handbook   # give the bundle a name
okf lint @handbook                      # @slug works wherever a <dir> does, from anywhere
okf search @all rate limit              # ranked retrieval across every registered bundle
okf server                              # no args: the whole registry behind one hub

Related bundles can share a name: okf registry group backend @handbook @runbooks makes @backend stand for the set (members can be groups too, so they nest), and okf search @backend rate limit or okf server @backend then targets all of them at once — a durable subset for the two verbs that take several bundles.

The registry lives under $OKF_HOME (default ~/.okf) — one per user. For one scoped to a single project instead, okf registry init drops a .okf-registry.json in the current directory; okf then discovers it by walking up from wherever you run, and every registry op — and every @slug — resolves through it in place of the global one. So a bare okf server inside that repo serves its bundles with no $OKF_HOME setup. The nearest registry wins, and OKF_NO_DISCOVERY=1 forces the global one.

Commit that file and it travels with the repo: a bundle under the project root is stored relative to the registry, so a checkout on another machine — or a container that mounts the repo — resolves the same bundles unchanged. (Bundles outside the tree keep absolute paths, which do not travel.)

Behind the hub each bundle mounts at /b/<slug>/, /b/ lists them all, and the ⌘/Ctrl-K palette both switches bundles and searches every one at once — type a few words and the matching concepts appear with their bundle and a snippet, from wherever you are.

The ⚙ rail opens Bundles, the registry on the graph page itself: make default, rename, remove, where you are already reading. Those controls are the one thing that does not follow you onto a network — bind anywhere but loopback and they are refused outright, since --bind 0.0.0.0 is how a personal tool becomes a public one.

Agent skill

The gem carries the companion OKF agent skill: a SKILL.md plus reference and template files that teach a coding agent to author, maintain, and consume OKF bundles and to drive the commands below. Because the skill ships inside the gem, installing the gem already puts the skill on your machine, and the skill's CLI reference can never drift from the executable it was released with.

The skill routes a small set of verbs. In Claude Code they run as /okf:gem <verb>; used standalone, the skill infers the verb from your request.

Verb	What it does
(none)	Orient on the bundle and recommend the highest-value next move
search	Answer a question from the bundle, token-lean: the map, the finder, only the winning bodies
produce	Create or extend a bundle from code, docs, or knowledge in people's heads
migrate	Adopt existing Markdown docs in place: frontmatter and reserved files added, bodies kept verbatim
maintain	Sync the bundle's content with reality after the code or docs change
refine	Restructure it for retrieval: evidence-first, cohesion over balance — proposes, never applies
consume	Use the bundle as context for a task, writing back what you learn
curate	Structural upkeep as it stands: validate + lint + loose
doctor	Install and verify the CLI, then doctor the bundle
<okf-cli-verb>	Run any CLI verb (validate, lint, search, index, server, the read views) and interpret its output

Three of those look alike and are not, which is the distinction worth learning first: curate keeps the bundle sound (the structure as it stands), maintain keeps it true (the code changed, so the content must catch up), and refine changes where knowledge lives — the folder a concept sits in, a fact re-explained in three overviews. Reach for refine when nothing is wrong and everything is hard to find. It reads the evidence, then hands you a proposal — it never rearranges your bundle on its own.

Point it at your agent's config directory and the tree settles in its own skills/okf/ folder, so a shared skills directory never gets the files loose:

okf skill .claude     # Claude Code      -> .claude/skills/okf
okf skill .agents     # agent-agnostic   -> .agents/skills/okf

The resolved directory must be empty unless you pass --force, so a customized skill is never clobbered.

Claude Code plugin

This repository doubles as a Claude Code plugin marketplace, so the whole toolchain installs with two commands inside Claude Code:

/plugin marketplace add serradura/okf-gem
/plugin install okf@okfgem

The plugin carries three pieces: the okf skill above; /okf:gem, a front door that hands its arguments to the skill unchanged (no arguments: it orients on your bundle and recommends the next move, never auto-runs); and a curation hook that runs okf validate + okf lint after every edit inside a bundle and returns the findings as context. The checks are the CLI's own, so the feedback is deterministic.

The hook stays silent outside bundles, and it is config-free to switch off: OKF_CURATE_DISABLED=1 turns it off, OKF_CURATE_QUIET=1 keeps the findings without the install suggestion, and an <!-- okf-disable --> comment skips one file.

Prefer no plugin? gem install okf && okf skill .claude installs the skill alone, and the skill itself instructs the agent to run the same checks after editing a bundle.

Command line

These verbs are written to be read by an agent first and a person second — that is what the skill drives, with no wrapper in between. Every read verb takes --json, the list views project down to the fields you ask for (--fields/--except), so nothing pays for output it will not read, and the exit codes are stable enough to branch on in CI. The same commands render as scannable plain text when a human is the one looking.

okf validate  <dir|@slug>                        # is this legal OKF?
okf lint      <dir|@slug> [--fail-on warn]       # is it navigable, complete, fresh?
okf loose     <dir|@slug>                        # concepts with no links in or out
okf search    <dir|@slug…|@all> <term…>          # ranked retrieval; @all spans every bundle
okf index     <dir|@slug> [--dir D] [--depth N]  # the §6 map: index bodies, rollups, listings
okf dirs      <dir|@slug> [--dir D] [--depth N]  # the shape: every directory and what it holds
okf catalog | files | tags | types | stats  <dir|@slug>   # the browser views, on the CLI
okf graph     <dir|@slug> [--hubs] [--traffic]   # the raw graph; --hubs ranks concepts, --traffic dirs
okf server    [DIR|@slug…] [-p PORT] [--bind ADDR]   # the live graph: one bundle, or all of them
okf render    <dir|@slug> [-o FILE]              # the same page as one static, self-contained file
okf registry  init | list | set | del | default | rename | group | ungroup   # name & group your bundles; @slug works anywhere
okf skill     <dest>                             # install the companion agent skill
okf --version

Exit codes: 0 success, 1 non-conformant bundle (or a lint --fail-on threshold crossed), 2 usage error. Every flag is in okf <verb> --help and in the docs.

$ okf validate docs
OKF v0.1 conformance — docs
  concepts: 37   index.md: 10   log.md: 1
  ! warn  features/link-suggestions.md: cross-link target not found: `/graph-view.md` (tolerated under §5.3)
  …
  ✓ conformant (33 warning(s))

$ okf server docs
serving 37 concepts at http://127.0.0.1:8808 (Ctrl-C to stop)

$ okf render docs > public/index.html   # the same page, static — host it anywhere

Reading a big bundle a level at a time

A few hundred concepts is a map nobody reads whole, so index and dirs descend instead of dumping. --dir takes a directory and everything under it, --depth N bounds how far below that it goes, and the two compose the way you actually walk a tree:

okf dirs  @handbook                       # the shape: every dir, what it holds directly and below
okf index @handbook --depth 1 --no-body   # the top of the map, no prose
okf index @handbook --dir platform/api    # now open one branch — with the chain that places it

Naming a --dir brings its ancestors along, marked ↑, so a branch is never shown adrift of the context that says what it is — the root index.md's prose first among it.

For an agent the saving is the whole point. On a 400-concept bundle the full okf index --json is 313 KB; the skeleton it orients on is 2.8 KB:

okf index @handbook --json --depth 1 --except body,listing

Library

require "okf" gives you the whole thing as Ruby objects — two layers: pure in-memory data (OKF::Concept, OKF::Bundle) you build and analyze with no disk involved, and on-disk handles (OKF::Concept::File, OKF::Bundle::Folder) that add load/save/reload/delete, an "ActiveRecord for the filesystem".

require "okf"

folder = OKF::Bundle::Folder.load("docs")
folder.concepts                  # => [OKF::Concept]
folder.validate                  # => §9 conformance result
folder.lint                      # => curation report
folder.graph                     # => nodes, edges, indexes

require "okf/server/app"
OKF::Server::App.new(folder)     # => a Rack app: the interactive graph, mountable

That last line is the point of the Rack app: the graph mounts inside an app you already have, auth included. The Rails guide walks it, and the library API covers the pure layer, the writer, and the lower-level pieces.

validate and lint are two different questions

validate (the conformance validator) asks "is this legal OKF?" and implements the spec's §9 exactly — which means it is forbidden to reject a bundle for a broken link or a missing optional field.

lint (the curation linter) asks the complementary question, "is this well-curated, navigable, trustworthy?", over exactly those tolerated things: reachability, backlog, completeness, freshness, provenance, hygiene. It is advisory and exits 0 even with findings unless you pass --fail-on warn.

Keeping them apart is what lets you gate CI on conformance without gating it on taste. lint --json is also the structured input an agent reads to reason about the two things no checker can compute — contradictions, and semantic staleness.

Extending okf, and running it safely

Publish a gem named okf-* carrying an okf/plugin.rb and installing it is the whole installation: your verb answers to okf and behaves like a built-in. Nothing an addon registers can displace one, and a broken addon is skipped rather than taking the CLI down. Contract and threat model: extension points.

The graph page treats a bundle as untrusted content: inlined data is escaped, and every concept body is sanitized before it reaches the DOM, so a script hidden in Markdown is stripped rather than run. It still loads libraries from a CDN, so treat an unfamiliar bundle the way you would treat any document from a source you do not know. Full write-up: server trust boundary.

Development

bin/setup               # install dependencies
bundle exec rake        # tests + RuboCop (what CI runs)
bundle exec rake test   # just the test suite
ruby -Ilib exe/okf validate <dir>   # run the CLI from a checkout

The suite runs on every supported Ruby; to check the 2.4 floor locally:

docker run --rm -v "$PWD":/src:ro ruby:2.4 bash -c \
  "cp -a /src /build && cd /build && rm -f Gemfile.lock && bundle install --quiet && bundle exec rake test"

The graph page has its own suite in a real browser (bundle exec rake browser:setup, then rake test:browser). See AGENTS.md for the maintainer guide.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/serradura/okf-gem. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the code of conduct.

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the Apache License 2.0 (see LICENSE.txt). The Open Knowledge Format specification bundled with the skill is authored by Google Cloud Platform and included under its own Apache-2.0 license, Copyright (c) Google LLC. See NOTICE and lib/okf/skill/reference/APACHE-2.0.txt.

okf-skills by Marco Boffo, a Python OKF toolkit for Claude Code with a feature-rich interactive graph view, was an early inspiration for this gem's Claude Code plugin and for the knowledge-as-code comparison in Why OKF. okf-gem takes a different shape: a Ruby-native gem built around the okf CLI and an embeddable library.