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Top AI Repos tracks AI repositories on GitHub and answers two different questions about each one: is it moving right now, and would you bet a product on it.
Top AI Repos tracks AI repositories on GitHub and answers two different questions about each one: is it moving right now, and would you bet a product on it.
š§» Knowledge system for agents. Local-first, file-based, progressively disclosed.
| Date | Stars |
|---|---|
| 2026-07-31 | 407 |
| 2026-08-06 | 407 |
Today
ā stars today
This week
ā stars this week
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Momentum
15.0
growth rate 0.00%/day
# napkin
š§» Knowledge system for agents. Local-first, file-based, progressively disclosed.
Every great idea started on a napkin.
```bash
npm install -g napkin-ai
```
---
## Quick Start
```bash
# Initialize a vault
napkin init --template coding
# See what's in it
napkin overview
# Search for something
napkin search "authentication"
# Read a file
napkin read "Architecture"
# Update the CLI
napkin update
# Write
napkin create "Decision" --template Decision
napkin append "Decision" "We chose Postgres."
napkin daily append "- [ ] Review PR"
```
---
## SDK
napkin is also a library. No CLI, no stdout - just data:
```typescript
import { Napkin } from "napkin-ai";
// Always works - creates bare vault if needed
const n = new Napkin("/path/to/project");
// Progressive disclosure
const overview = n.overview();
const results = n.search("authentication");
const file = n.read("Architecture");
// Write
n.create({ name: "New Note", content: "# Hello" });
n.append("New Note", "\nMore content");
// Daily notes
n.dailyEnsure();
n.dailyAppend("- Met with team");
// Everything else
n.tags();
n.tasks({ todo: true });
n.linksBack("Architecture");
n.outline("Architecture");
n.properties();
n.bookmarks();
n.config();
```
Scaffold with a template:
```typescript
Napkin.scaffold("/path/to/project", { template: "coding" });
Napkin.vaultTemplates(); // list available templates
```
All SDK methods return typed data and throw errors on failure. No `console.log`, no `process.exit`.
---
## Progressive Disclosure
napkin is designed as a memory system for agents. Instead of dumping the full vault into context, it reveals information gradually:
| Level | Command | Tokens | What it does |
|-------|---------|--------|-------------|
| 0 | `NAPKIN.md` | ~200 | Project context note |
| 1 | `napkin overview` | ~1-2k | L0 + vault map with TF-IDF keywords |
| 2 | `napkin search <query>` | ~2-5k | Ranked results with snippets |
| 3 | `napkin read <file>` | ~5-20k | Full file content |
## Benchmarks
napkin includes agentic retrieval benchmarks in `bench/`. The headline result is [LongMemEval](https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.10813) (ICLR 2025), which tests long-term conversational memory across 500 questions.
| Dataset | Sessions | pi + napkin | Best prior system | GPT-4o full context |
|---------|----------|-------------|-------------------|---------------------|
| Oracle | 1-6 | **92.0%** | 92.4% | 92.4% |
| S | ~40 | **91.0%** | 86% | 64% |
| M | ~500 | **83.0%** | 72% | n/a |
Zero preprocessing. No embeddings, no graphs, no summaries. Just BM25 search on markdown files.
See [`bench/README.md`](bench/README.md) for details and usage.
---
## Vault Structure
`.napkin/` holds config. Content lives in the project directory alongside `.obsidian/`:
```
my-project/
.napkin/ # napkin config
config.json # Unified config (syncs to .obsidian/)
.obsidian/ # Obsidian config (auto-generated)
NAPKIN.md # Context note (Level 0)
decisions/ # Template-defined directories
architecture/
Templates/ # Note templates
src/ # Your project (not in vault)
```
## Templates
Scaffold a vault with a domain-specific structure:
```bash
napkin init --template coding # decisions/, architecture/, guides/, changelog/
napkin init --template company # people/, projects/, runbooks/, infrastructure/
napkin init --template product # features/, roadmap/, research/, specs/, releases/
napkin init --template personal # people/, projects/, areas/, references/
napkin init --template research # papers/, concepts/, questions/, experiments/
```
Each template includes directory structure, `_about.md` files, Obsidian note templates, and a `NAPKIN.md` skeleton.
---
## For Agents
Every command supports `--json` for structured output and `-q` for raw output:
```bash
napkin overview --json # Structured vault map
napkin search "auth" --json #Excerpt of 10,033 characters
Read on GitHubWould you bet a product on this? Bounded 0ā100 and slow moving.
matched fp:2082bf39b238c80f, llm:Repository description: 'Knowledge system for agents. Local-first, file-based, progressively disclosed.' Language: TypeScript. No topics provided.
matched fp:2082bf39b238c80f, llm:Repository description: 'Knowledge system for agents. Local-first, file-based, progressively disclosed.' Language: TypeScript. No topics provided.
matched fp:2082bf39b238c80f, llm:Repository description: 'Knowledge system for agents. Local-first, file-based, progressively disclosed.' Language: TypeScript. No topics provided.