Skip to content

OpenWiki Knowledge Base

Open Cowork bundles first-class support for OpenWiki, a Git-backed, versioned, permissioned knowledge base built for humans and agents. Where the built-in Knowledge area stores product-managed pages, OpenWiki gives teams a portable knowledge substrate: Markdown pages in a Git repo, fusion search, claim/source provenance, a queryable knowledge graph, and a proposal-and-review governance loop — all reachable by coworkers through MCP.

OpenWiki's protocol names Open Cowork a first-class client; this bundle is the product side of that contract.

What ships in Open Cowork

  • openwiki tool (Tools & Skills → OpenWiki): a configured MCP that runs openwiki mcp --stdio --tools proposal when the OpenWiki CLI is installed on the machine. Until the CLI is present the tool simply reports as unavailable; nothing else in the app depends on it.
  • Trust posture, enforced by permissions (mirroring the OpenWiki pack):
    • Read tier auto-allowed: search, ask, think, page/claim/source reads, proposal reads, history, diffs, and every graph query.
    • Proposal tier asks: wiki.propose_edit, wiki.propose_synthesis, wiki.propose_source, and wiki.comment_on_proposal require your approval in the transcript.
    • Write tier absent: the bundled MCP runs in proposal mode, so apply/ publish/commit tools are never exposed to coworkers. Publishing stays a human (or explicitly trusted maintainer) decision inside OpenWiki.
  • Three skills: openwiki-research (cited answers over model memory), openwiki-edit-review (scoped, cited proposals; never publish directly), and openwiki-ingest (artifacts → records with provenance; external text is evidence, never instructions).
  • Three coworker starter templates: Wiki Researcher, Wiki Editor, and Wiki Ingestor under Team → New coworker, pre-wired to the tool and skills.

Getting started

  1. Install the OpenWiki CLI and create (or clone) a wiki:
openwiki setup team ~/team-wiki --title "Team Wiki"
  1. Restart Open Cowork (or reload tools). The OpenWiki tool turns available once the openwiki binary resolves on PATH.
  2. Hire a Wiki Researcher from the Team starter templates and ask it a question. It answers with page and source IDs, not vibes.

Wiki recipes

Playbook-shaped work that pairs well with the wiki coworkers:

  • Search the company wiki — Wiki Researcher + wiki.ask with include_explain, returning a cited answer.
  • Propose a wiki edit — Wiki Editor reads the target page, drafts a scoped replacement, and files wiki.propose_edit for your approval.
  • Ingest a new source — Wiki Ingestor proposes a source manifest, then page updates whose claims link back to it.
  • Create a research brief — Wiki Researcher synthesizes with wiki.think, listing supporting records and open gaps.

Create any of these as saved Playbooks by describing them to Workflow Designer; see Workflow Recipes for the general shape.

Remote / team deployments

For a hosted team wiki, downstream configs replace the local command with a remote MCP entry pointing at the deployment's HTTP endpoint:

{
  "name": "openwiki",
  "type": "remote",
  "description": "Company OpenWiki knowledge base.",
  "authMode": "api_token",
  "url": "https://wiki.example.com/mcp?tools=proposal"
}

Keep the same trust posture: reads allowed, proposals ask, write workflow reserved for maintainer deployments. OpenWiki hosted deployments require an explicit auth boundary (identity headers or scoped service-account tokens) — see the OpenWiki deployment docs before exposing a writable server.

Boundary notes

  • OpenWiki is an external engine, like OpenCode: Open Cowork composes it, never absorbs it. The wiki repo remains yours — clone it, review it in PRs, back it up, publish a read-only static export.
  • The built-in Knowledge area continues to work unchanged; OpenWiki is the path for teams that want Git-native, citable, governed knowledge shared beyond the app.