Antigravity (and other agents) auto-load this file. You are continuing work on ObsoleteKnowledge, an Obsidian knowledge vault: small atomic reference "nodes" woven into a wikilink web, with read: progress tracking. Your job is to author new nodes and list pages for topics from NAQT's You Gotta Know catalogue, matching the existing format exactly. Read CLAUDE.md, VISION.md, and tools/generate-node.md for the full design; this file is the quick operating guide.
- Write original content only. Do not fetch, paste, read, or paraphrase NAQT's article prose into yourself — their terms of use forbid putting their text into a language model, and copying their wording would create infringing content. Use NAQT only as a scope checklist: the topic title and the names of the ~10 entries (names are facts). Write every word yourself from general knowledge / open references (Wikipedia, Britannica, primary texts). If unsure of a fact, state it less precisely rather than invent it.
- One node per entity, globally-unique filename. Obsidian resolves
[[wikilinks]]by basename across the whole vault, so two files with the same name silently break every link to that name. Before creating a node, check whether it already exists (ls concepts/**). If a figure is shared between lists (e.g. Achilles is in both Greek heroes and Trojan War heroes), do not make a second file — instead add the new list to the existing node'slists:frontmatter and link to it. read: falsealways. It is the single source of truth for progress. Never add a## Understood?section or any other tracking state.
concepts/<category>/<slug>.md # one fact-node per entity
lists/<slug>.md # one map-of-content (MOC) per NAQT topic
index.md # master catalogue of all 187 topics (the frontier)
<category> is a flat top-level subject. Use these folder names (kebab-case), matching index.md's NAQT categories:
mythology · religion · literature · history · geography · science · mathematics · social-science · philosophy · music · performance · visual-art · pop-culture · sports · misc
The same string is the value of the category: frontmatter field.
<slug> = kebab-case of the common English name (king-arthur, chemical-elements). Disambiguate generic names so the basename is meaningful and unique: jewish-marriage not marriage, john-the-apostle not john, book-of-job not job.
---
type: <person | deity | hero | monster | work | text | event | place | concept | phrase | practice | holiday | element | species | term>
category: <one of the folder names above>
defines: [Canonical Name, Alias One, Alias Two]
related: ["[[slug-a]]", "[[slug-b]]"]
lists: ["[[list-slug]]"]
read: false
---
# Canonical Name
## summary
2–4 sentences: what/who it is, when and where, and why it is worth knowing. Plain prose; *italics* for emphasis only.
## you gotta know
4–8 bullets, each ONE fact, ordered **most-recognisable first → most-obscure last** (the order quiz-bowl giveaway clues run). *Italics* for key names, titles, dates, places. Be specific — a named work, a number, a relationship, a famous line — never vague ("was important").
- fact one
- fact two
## connections
How this node ties into the web. Each bullet is `[[slug]] — one-line reason`. Link to family, rivals, teachers/students, the same myth/event, cause/effect, the work it appears in. 2–5 links minimum. Linking to a node that doesn't exist yet is fine and encouraged — dangling links are the frontier.
- [[other-slug]] — why they're connected.
## see also
One line of sibling wikilinks separated by ` · ` — usually peers from the same list.
- [[peer-a]] · [[peer-b]] · [[peer-c]]
<!-- footer -->
---
Lists: [[list-slug]] · Mark read: `INPUT[toggle:read]`Notes:
- Footer lists every list the node belongs to:
Lists: [[greek-heroes]] · [[trojan-war-heroes]] · Mark read: .... defines= the display name plus any aliases/alternate spellings the node owns.- Read an existing node first as a style exemplar, e.g.
concepts/mythology/odin.mdorconcepts/religion/moses.md. - Tier-1 (Cornerstone) nodes add a
## contextsection after## you gotta know(see Depth tiers below).
Not every node deserves equal effort. Match depth to how central the topic is. Effort budget should flow to the major concepts, not be spread evenly.
Tier 1 — Cornerstone. Civilization-level concepts and high-traffic hubs: jesus, zeus, judaism, the-trojan-war; and major lists/members like programming terms, massacres, elections, chemical elements, Supreme Court cases, World War II battles. Marked ⭐ in BUILD-ORDER.md. Give these the deep treatment:
- summary: a full paragraph (4–6 sentences) — identity, scope, and why it's pivotal.
- you gotta know: 8–14 bullets, and group them under
###sub-headers when the material splits naturally (e.g. forjesus:### life,### teachings,### death & resurrection,### influence; for a battle:### background,### the battle,### aftermath). ## context(Tier-1 only): one paragraph on broader significance — influence, legacy, why it recurs in quiz bowl and the wider culture.- connections: 6–10 links, reaching across domains (a person → their works, era, rivals, the movement they belong to).
Tier 2 — Standard. Everything else (the default, and what the existing Mythology & Belief nodes are): summary 2–4 sentences, 4–8 clue bullets, 2–5 connections, no ## context.
Within any list, even a Tier-2 list, give the 1–3 keystone members Tier-1 depth (e.g. in operas, Carmen and The Magic Flute get more than a minor entry). Use judgment: if a topic is obviously major but isn't marked ⭐, treat it as Tier 1 anyway. Better to over-invest in the famous than to pad the obscure.
---
type: list
category: <category>
read: false
---
# <List Title>
One sentence: what this topic covers and why it matters.
## nodes
- [[slug|Display Name]] — one-line hint.
- [[slug|Display Name]] — one-line hint.
## progress
Live read-status for this list (requires the **Bases** core plugin).
```base
filters:
and:
- file.hasLink(this.file)
views:
- type: table
name: Progress
order:
- file.name
- read
- type
sort:
- property: read
direction: ASC
- property: file.name
direction: ASC
The `file.hasLink(this.file)` filter automatically shows every node whose `lists:` links to this MOC. (`lists.containsLinkTo(...)` is **not** a real Bases function — never use it.)
---
## 4. Formatting rules (strict)
- Wikilinks use the lowercase **slug**: `[[odin]]`, never `[[Odin]]`. For nicer display in lists, alias it: `[[odin|Odin]]`.
- `**bold**` is reserved for the node's own name/aliases (things in its `defines`). Use `*italics*` for all other emphasis and for key names inside clues. **Never bold for emphasis or clue labels.**
- `` `code` `` for literal tokens (transliterations, fixed notation).
- **YAML safety:** in `defines`, wrap any value containing an apostrophe, colon, or non-ASCII letter in double quotes — `defines: ["Qur'an", Koran]`, `defines: ["Baháʼu'lláh"]`.
- Obsidian rewrites inline frontmatter lists (`lists: ["[[x]]"]`) into block style when you edit a note. Both are valid; don't fight it. If you write tooling that reads frontmatter, parse real YAML, not regex.
---
## 5. Workflow to build one list
**Stay on-spec:** at the start of every item, **re-read this `AGENTS.md` and `BUILD-ORDER.md`** before writing. Over a long autonomous run your sense of the format drifts; a 10-second re-read prevents it. Also glance at one recent node you wrote to confirm you're still matching the template.
1. **Pick a frontier topic** — the first unchecked item in `BUILD-ORDER.md`. Check whether it's marked **⭐ (Tier 1)** and set your depth accordingly (§2b).
2. **Enumerate members** — the ~10 well-known entities for that topic. You may use NAQT's entry names as the checklist (names only).
3. **Dedup** — for each member, `ls concepts/<category>/` (and grep the vault) to see if a node already exists. If it does, add this list to that node's `lists:` and footer; do not duplicate. Otherwise author it from the node template.
4. **Write the MOC** at `lists/<slug>.md` from the list template, listing every member.
5. **Update `index.md`** — put a `✅ ` in front of that topic's `[[slug]]` entry (and add it to the "Built so far" section) so the catalogue reflects it.
6. **Validate** (section 6).
Aim for the same density and accuracy as the existing Mythology & Belief nodes. Quality bar: every "you gotta know" bullet carries a specific, checkable fact; at least 2–3 real connections per node; recognisable-first ordering; accuracy over invention. Work one list at a time; create the member nodes, then the MOC, then validate, then move on.
---
## 6. Validate before you finish
Check, across everything you wrote:
- **No duplicate basenames** anywhere in `concepts/` (list all `concepts/**/*.md` basenames, confirm no repeats).
- Every node has complete frontmatter (`type`, `category`, `defines`, `related`, `lists`, `read: false`) and ends with the `<!-- footer -->` block containing the `Mark read` toggle.
- Every node listed in a MOC's `## nodes` has that list in its `lists:` frontmatter, and vice versa (membership is symmetric).
- Wikilinks are well-formed; dangling links are OK (frontier) but intra-list links should resolve once the list is done.
- No `## Understood?` sections; no NAQT prose anywhere.
A quick Python check (PyYAML) that mirrors the project validator:
```python
import glob, os, yaml, collections
base=collections.Counter(os.path.splitext(os.path.basename(f))[0] for f in glob.glob("concepts/**/*.md",recursive=True))
print("DUP basenames:", [b for b,c in base.items() if c>1] or "none")
for f in glob.glob("concepts/**/*.md",recursive=True):
t=open(f,encoding="utf-8").read(); fm=t[3:t.find("\n---",3)]
d=yaml.safe_load(fm)
for k in ("type","category","defines","lists","read"):
if k not in d: print(f, "missing", k)
if "<!-- footer -->" not in t: print(f, "no footer")
Read these before writing, to match voice and structure:
concepts/mythology/odin.md,concepts/mythology/medusa.md(entities)concepts/religion/moses.md,concepts/religion/quran.md(people / texts)lists/norse-gods.md(a finished MOC)CLAUDE.mdandtools/generate-node.md(the authoritative spec)
High-value, well-bounded lists to start with — and natural cross-links into the existing Mythology & Belief web:
- History:
roman-emperors,british-monarchs,chinese-dynasties,ancient-empires,russian-tsars,popes - Science:
chemical-elements,organelles,phyla,moons,geologic-time-periods - Literature:
short-story-authors,shakespearean-villains,latin-american-authors - Hub nodes (currently high-inbound dangling links worth authoring as nodes, not lists):
the-trojan-war,the-iliad,the-odyssey,jesus,judaism,torah,pharaoh,zeus,the-twelve-olympians. File these under the relevant category (e.g.concepts/mythology/the-trojan-war.md) withlists: []if they belong to no NAQT list.