Reviving smith.wiki
I no longer like the current version of smith.wiki.
The problem is that I tried to partially change my way of working by adding ChatGPT and Bluesky for research, but this is not viable. My way of working should be simple and universal. It should not differ across activities, or at least it should be compatible with them. What I built in smith.wiki turned out not to be very compatible. But it opened the way for me to work asynchronously with agents through email, which is important.
I remembered how I built my first knowledge management system in 2020. It was the first prototype of smith.wiki.
There were no LLMs yet, but there was Notion. I worked in several modes, and it was incredibly effective:
- I browsed feeds and saved anything I liked to Notion. I did not read it closely at this stage. I just saved it.
- I chose what to read more carefully from the things I had saved.
- I read it closely, or watched the video, highlighted concepts and references, added authors, and generally filled out the source card.
I maintained this database for several years, and it seemed very useful to me. At some point, I abandoned it. I no longer remember when or why. Apparently, I decided to try something new, and it did not stick.
Without realizing it, I tried to build the same workflow in smith.wiki, but it came out awkward for one simple reason. Notion made it possible to combine data and its lifecycle. For example, every link, article, or other source had a status field, such as not started, skimmed, analyzed, and so on. This can also be done in Markdown by storing data in frontmatter, but the lack of a default UX makes quick reviews difficult, especially when I want to do something manually and quickly, without agents.
At the same time, agents create a new layer of problems because everything gets added to the database, not just what interests me. But this can also be handled with a separate status and convenient filtering.
In short, a database like this needs a convenient UX. Notion provides it out of the box, while other similar solutions fall short. I am thinking of returning to Notion and restoring the principles that worked for me for years and brought incredible value, but this time with agents and publishing to andy.smith.wiki. The result will be a product that anyone can deploy, while still being tailored to my problems. I do not think I am the only one with these pain points.
The same product could also serve as a foundation for learning tools. I still want to return to the idea of generating learning programs, where an agent sends me excerpts from the literature along with examples from my own work and exercises based on my projects. This could also be part of smith.wiki, or it could be a separate product.
Once I bring backfabric.dev to some basic result, I will start working on this right away.