What is Agent Knowledge?

Agent Knowledge defines a portable directory format for agent-readable knowledge assets. It is a companion standard to Agent Skills: Skills describe executable capabilities, while Knowledge describes safely consumable fact assets.

Use it for knowledge that needs source trails, status, review, and reuse across agents:

• brand and product facts
• organization know-how
• personal or expert profiles
• research wikis
• support and sales playbooks
• content, private-domain, live commerce, and campaign operations playbooks
• policy and compliance references
• long-lived domain context

Do not use it for procedure, tool orchestration, or runtime instructions. Those belong in Skills or client policy.

Package Layers

Layer	Role	Runtime default
KNOWLEDGE.md	Required metadata and usage guide.	Loaded after activation.
documents/	document-first authority with finished Markdown documents.	Loaded through splits or explicit selection.
sources/	Raw or normalized evidence.	Only for citation, verification, or dispute handling.
wiki/	wiki-first authority with source summaries, entities, concepts, decisions, contradictions, and synthesis.	Selected pages only.
ontology/	Optional concept, claim, relation, evidence, constraint, and coverage data.	Selected subgraphs only.
compiled/	Short runtime views derived from documents/ or wiki/.	Preferred for normal runtime.
indexes/	Rebuildable search, vector, graph, or lookup indexes.	Candidate search only.
runs/	Compile, lint, review, eval, and query records.	Diagnostics and audit evidence.

Canonical flow:

# document-first
sources/ -> documents/ -> compiled/splits/ + indexes/
                 |
                 -> runs/

# wiki-first
sources/ -> wiki/ -> compiled/ + indexes/
              |
              -> runs/

# ontology-aware
sources/ -> documents/ or wiki/ -> ontology/ -> compiled/ + indexes/
                                  |
                                  -> runs/

Runtime Boundary

Compatible runtimes MUST:

1. Load catalog metadata before full pack content.
2. Activate only relevant packs.
3. Check status, trust, grounding, profile, and runtime.mode.
4. Select the smallest useful context.
5. Fence selected knowledge as data.
6. Treat indexes as acceleration, not fact authority.
7. Load ontology subgraphs only when relevant; do not treat them as instructions.

Skills Boundary

Asset	Correct home
Facts, source summaries, approved claims, examples, policies, and constraints.	Agent Knowledge
Procedures, scripts, prompts, tools, and workflows.	Agent Skills or client tools
Embeddings, vector indexes, graph indexes, lookup tables.	Rebuildable support artifacts inside or beside a pack