OpenWiki

OpenWiki is a CLI that writes and maintains agent wikis for codebases or purpose memory. It's built specifically for agents, can ingest local knowledge sources through built-in connectors or git repositories and synthesize them into a local wiki.

Install

npm install -g openwiki

On Windows, prefer installing OpenWiki with Node.js package managers such as npm or pnpm:

npm install -g openwiki
# or
pnpm add -g openwiki

bun install -g openwiki can fall back to compiling OpenWiki's better-sqlite3 checkpointing dependency. Before using that path, install Visual Studio Build Tools with the Desktop development with C++ workload. Bun does not run lifecycle scripts from installed packages by default, so it cannot display a package-level warning before that native dependency build starts.

Quick Start

Initialize OpenWiki in code mode, configure your model and API key, then generate documentation:

openwiki --init

OpenWiki has two modes:

• Personal mode builds a local personal brain wiki in ~/.openwiki/wiki from configured sources like local repositories, Gmail, Notion, Web Search, Hacker News, and X/Twitter.
• Code mode builds repository documentation in openwiki/ for the current codebase.

Bare openwiki --init and openwiki --update run in code mode. Use openwiki personal --init or openwiki personal --update for the local personal brain wiki.

Then to ensure your documentation stays up-to-date, add the CI workflow for your Git provider to automatically open a PR or merge request with documentation updates:

• GitHub Actions: copy openwiki-update.yml into .github/workflows/openwiki-update.yml.
• GitLab CI: copy openwiki-update.gitlab-ci.yml into .gitlab-ci.yml or include it from your existing GitLab pipeline.
• Bitbucket Pipelines: copy openwiki-update.bitbucket-pipelines.yml into bitbucket-pipelines.yml, then schedule the openwiki-update custom pipeline from Repository settings > Pipelines > Schedules.

For repository documentation in GitHub Actions, use openwiki code --update --print. You do not need to run --init in CI: --update will create the initial openwiki/ docs if they do not exist yet, as long as the workflow provides the required provider and model environment variables.

Usage

Start the interactive CLI in code mode for the current repository:

openwiki

Start OpenWiki with an initial request:

openwiki "Please generate documentation for this repository"

Start the interactive local personal brain instead:

openwiki personal

Run a single command and exit:

openwiki -p "Summarize what you can do"

Initialize OpenWiki:

openwiki --init

Initialize the local personal brain wiki:

openwiki personal --init

Update repository code documentation:

openwiki --update

Update the local personal brain wiki:

openwiki personal --update

Run an update that can ingest configured local connectors first:

openwiki personal --update "Refresh the wiki from configured connectors"

Show help:

openwiki --help

In chat, use /api-key to update the current provider API key and /langsmith-key to update or clear LangSmith tracing credentials. Both commands use masked prompts.

Authenticate a connector provider:

openwiki auth slack
openwiki auth gmail
openwiki auth x
openwiki auth notion

Start an ngrok tunnel for Slack OAuth:

openwiki ngrok start

This starts ngrok with a random HTTPS forwarding URL. OpenWiki reads ngrok's local inspection API, appends /callback, and saves OPENWIKI_HTTPS_OAUTH_REDIRECT_URI automatically. Register the printed callback URL in Slack. If you have a fixed ngrok domain, run openwiki ngrok start https://<your-ngrok-domain>. X/Twitter and Gmail auth ignore that HTTPS override and keep using the local loopback callback, http://127.0.0.1:53682/callback.

Bare openwiki runs in code mode for the current repository. It creates initial repository documentation in openwiki/ when no wiki exists. Use openwiki personal for the local general-purpose wiki in ~/.openwiki/wiki/. By default, the CLI stays open after each run so you can send follow-up messages. Use -p or --print for a one-shot non-interactive run that prints the final assistant output.

Bare openwiki --init and openwiki --update default to code mode and operate on repository documentation. Use the personal positional mode or --mode personal to initialize or update the local personal brain wiki.

On each code run, openwiki maintains both an AGENTS.md and a CLAUDE.md at the repository root, adding prompting that instructs your coding agent to reference the wiki when searching for context. Each file is created if it does not already exist. If a file is present, OpenWiki only rewrites its own <!-- OPENWIKI:START -->…<!-- OPENWIKI:END --> block and leaves the rest of your content untouched (appending the block the first time). The scheduled GitHub Actions workflow includes these files, along with the workflow itself, in the documentation pull request.

On the first interactive run, OpenWiki will have you configure your inference provider, API key, and LLM. You will also be able to set a LangSmith API key to trace your OpenWiki runs to a LangSmith tracing project named "openwiki" (optional).

These configuration options and secrets will be saved to ~/.openwiki/.env on your local machine.

Local Connectors

OpenWiki's first-run onboarding offers connector setup for local Git repositories, Notion, Gmail, X/Twitter, Web Search, and Hacker News. During an ingestion run, deterministic connector tools write raw data and manifests under ~/.openwiki/connectors/<connector>/raw/, then source-specific agent runs synthesize the local wiki under ~/.openwiki/wiki/ from those local files.

You can configure the same connector more than once. For example, add one Web Search source for AI research and another for NBA news; OpenWiki stores them as separate source instances such as web-search-1 and web-search-2. Run all instances with openwiki ingest all, all instances for one connector with openwiki ingest web-search, or one instance with openwiki ingest web-search-2.

• git-repo reads configured local repository paths and writes compact manifests.
• x uses the X API directly with OAuth user-context credentials for home timeline, user posts, mentions, bookmarks, and list posts.
• notion targets the hosted Notion MCP server, so users should authenticate through Notion OAuth instead of pasting a Notion token into OpenWiki.
• google uses the Gmail API directly with OAuth user credentials to fetch recent mail, with room to add Drive, Calendar, and other Google providers later.
• web-search uses Tavily through LangChain and requires TAVILY_API_KEY.
• hackernews uses public Hacker News feed and search APIs, with no credentials required.

Connector secrets are referenced by env var name and stored in ~/.openwiki/.env; connector config files should never contain raw secret values.

openwiki auth <provider> runs a local browser OAuth flow, saves returned tokens into ~/.openwiki/.env, creates connector config when possible, and discovers MCP tools for MCP-backed providers. Slack and Gmail require app client credentials to already be set in that file; Notion uses dynamic client registration for hosted MCP; X uses OAuth 2.0 with PKCE. After openwiki auth gmail, the Google connector can ingest Gmail directly with no MCP transport setup.

openwiki auth configure <provider> and openwiki auth tools <provider> are advanced/retry commands for regenerating connector config or inspecting live MCP tools.

First-run onboarding also lets users choose a wiki template, customize its scope, and save per-source ingestion notes and source schedules in ~/.openwiki/onboarding.json. The global personal wiki instructions are saved in ~/.openwiki/INSTRUCTIONS.md. On macOS, source schedules are installed as user LaunchAgents under ~/Library/LaunchAgents/ and write logs under ~/.openwiki/logs/.

See the OpenWiki operations docs for credential storage and provider setup notes.

Customizing

OpenWiki supports OpenAI (with an API key or a ChatGPT login), OpenRouter, Fireworks, Baseten, NVIDIA NIM, an OpenAI-compatible provider, and Anthropic out of the box. The onboarding default is OpenAI with gpt-5.6-terra, and each inference provider also includes pre-defined model options plus support for custom model IDs.

Alternative base URLs

To route the Anthropic provider at an alternative, Anthropic-compatible endpoint (for example a self-hosted or proxied gateway) instead of the default API, set ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL alongside ANTHROPIC_API_KEY:

OPENWIKI_PROVIDER=anthropic
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=your-key
ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=https://your-gateway.example.com/anthropic

OpenAI-compatible endpoints

The openai-compatible provider targets any OpenAI-compatible chat-completions endpoint via a required base URL. This can be used for OpenAI-compatible LLM endpoints like those exposed by a LiteLLM gateway when it is used as a gateway — letting you reach whatever upstream providers the gateway fronts through a single OpenAI-shaped API. Set the model ID to whatever name the gateway exposes:

OPENWIKI_PROVIDER=openai-compatible
OPENAI_COMPATIBLE_API_KEY=your-gateway-key
OPENAI_COMPATIBLE_BASE_URL=https://your-gateway.example.com/v1
OPENWIKI_MODEL_ID=your-gateway-model-name

OpenAI (ChatGPT login)

The openai-chatgpt provider calls OpenAI's Codex backend using your ChatGPT subscription instead of a metered API key. Model usage draws on your ChatGPT Plus/Pro/Team plan's included Codex usage rather than per-token API billing. It serves the same models as the openai provider (gpt-5.4-mini, gpt-5.5).

Instead of pasting an API key, run the setup wizard and complete a browser login:

OPENWIKI_PROVIDER=openai-chatgpt openwiki code --init
# or
OPENWIKI_PROVIDER=openai-chatgpt openwiki personal --init

The wizard opens https://auth.openai.com in your browser (and also prints the URL for headless/SSH use, where you can open it on another machine — or paste the redirect URL back into the terminal to finish without a callback). After you sign in with your ChatGPT account, OpenWiki captures the OAuth callback, shows the signed-in email and plan, and then continues to model and LangSmith selection just like the other providers. It stores the resulting access token, refresh token, expiry, account id, email, and plan in ~/.openwiki/.env (OPENAI_CHATGPT_ACCESS_TOKEN, OPENAI_CHATGPT_REFRESH_TOKEN, OPENAI_CHATGPT_EXPIRES_AT, OPENAI_CHATGPT_ACCOUNT_ID, OPENAI_CHATGPT_EMAIL, OPENAI_CHATGPT_PLAN). These are managed for you — the access token is refreshed automatically when it expires, so you normally never edit them by hand. Treat the refresh token like a password.

Base URLs (and all credentials) can be set in your environment or stored in ~/.openwiki/.env.

Provider retry attempts

OpenWiki uses LangChain's built-in retry handling for transient provider errors. To override the number of retries after the first provider request, set OPENWIKI_PROVIDER_RETRY_ATTEMPTS:

OPENWIKI_PROVIDER_RETRY_ATTEMPTS=3

The value must be a positive integer. If the value is unset, OpenWiki defaults to 3 retries.

If there's an inference provider or model you'd like to see added, please open a PR!

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please read CONTRIBUTING.md before opening a PR. We intentionally keep PRs tightly scoped to one change each, and PRs that bundle unrelated changes may be closed with a request to split them.