Wiki Search and Maintenance
qmd is a CLI + MCP server that provides semantic and keyword search over wiki/. The MCP server (wiki-search) exposes two tools consumed by Claude Code directly. The CLI is used for maintenance (re-index, status).
All paths are relative to the vault root ($QMD_VAULT).
Prerequisites
QMD_VAULT must point to your vault root (no trailing slash). Export it in your shell profile:
export QMD_VAULT="/path/to/your/ObsidianVaults/ClaudeBrain"
If a new session does not inherit it, prefix commands with QMD_VAULT=... qmd ... or source your profile. qmd is installed as a bun global (bun install -g @qmd/cli); if the qmd command is not found, ensure ~/.bun/bin is on PATH.
Searching via MCP (preferred in-session path)
When the wiki-search MCP is active, prefer these tools over the CLI - they avoid the 3-4 second model load on every invocation:
| Tool | Purpose |
|---|
mcp__wiki-search__qmd_query | Semantic (vector) search - use for concepts, techniques, intent |
mcp__wiki-search__qmd_search | Keyword (substring) search - use for exact strings, tool names, CVE IDs |
CLAUDE.md rule: never read wiki/index.md to find pages - always search first.
Searching via CLI
Use when MCP is unavailable or for one-off maintenance.
Semantic query (5 results, default):
qmd query "CDN bypass origin IP"
Semantic query (custom result count):
qmd query -n 10 "JWT empty secret"
Keyword search:
qmd keyword "pnpm"
Output format: [score] path/relative/to/wiki/ followed by a chunk of the matching content.
Maintenance
Re-index after adding or editing pages (run once after a bulk write, not per file):
qmd update
Expected output: Indexing wiki... Done. N chunks indexed.
The CUDA warning about an old driver is harmless - the model runs on CPU.
Check index size:
qmd status
Output: Collection: wiki Chunks: N
Integrity and catalog upkeep
These run automatically at SessionStart (via engagement-init.py); run them by hand after a bulk edit, rename, or before sharing:
python3 scripts/gen_index.py # rebuild wiki/index.md catalog (idempotent; --check tests only)
python3 scripts/lint-wiki.py # broken links, dead script refs, frontmatter gaps, stale index, lean areas
python3 scripts/build_moc.py # rebuild graph hubs so every page stays reachable
lint-wiki.py exits non-zero on hard problems - use it as a pre-share / pre-commit gate. index.md and the *-moc.md hubs are generated; never hand-edit them.
Promote candidates
Generic, reusable knowledge found live during an engagement is staged to a review
queue under targets/<eng>/wiki-candidates/ (gitignored) the moment it is confirmed,
not at engagement end. It reaches wiki/ only through the leak-gated promoter.
python3 scripts/wiki-promote.py --list # pending candidates (slug, kind, page)
python3 scripts/wiki-promote.py --review <slug> # read one candidate in full
python3 scripts/wiki-promote.py --promote <slug> # or: --promote all
--promote runs scripts/check-leaks.sh --file on the candidate BODY. If a client
marker is present it refuses and writes nothing; if clean it merges into
wiki/<target_page> (dedup by slug), sets status: promoted, archives the file to
wiki-candidates/_promoted/, and re-indexes (gen_index.py + qmd update). Stage a
new candidate with scripts/wiki-stage.py --kind <default-cred|api-pattern|technique> --slug <slug>. This is the only path that writes engagement-derived knowledge into
wiki/, so the client-data boundary is enforced by code, not prose.
Broken install recovery
If qmd fails:
- Confirm the
qmd binary is on PATH (command -v qmd); it installs to ~/.bun/bin/qmd via bun install -g @qmd/cli.
- Check
QMD_VAULT is set and points to the current vault path (no trailing slash, no spaces encoded).
- The index lives under
~/.qmd/ - if the collection is missing, run qmd update to rebuild from scratch.
Files
| Path | Purpose |
|---|
~/.bun/bin/qmd | qmd CLI + MCP binary (bun global) |
~/.qmd/ | local search index |
$QMD_VAULT/wiki/ | the markdown corpus that gets indexed |