Personal Knowledge

A VS Code extension for managing your personal knowledge base — skills, notes, prompts, packages, and scripts — with hierarchical navigation, full-text search, syntax highlighting, AI-assisted summaries, a built-in sync server, and MCP integration so AI assistants can read and write your knowledge directly.

A note from the developer

This is a small extension born from a simple need: one unified place to manage skills, quick notes, large collections of prompts, and development scripts across multiple projects, vms, even colleagues. I don't want/need/should/feel happy to put everything to git, thus I have this extension. I'm a heavy user myself — and I'll keep improving it with regular updates. I hope it helps more people stay organized. Welcome aboard, and thanks for giving it a try!

— Uone

For Human

This extension allows you (human) to add/update/delete items, but it is more preferrable for agents to update and we review. Let agents play with your knowledge, they are kids.

First-Aid Tip

If you (usually me myself :) ) accidentally deleted/screwed up something, ask AI to fix. AI can read the database and mcp scripts to understand what to do.

Features

• Skills — reusable know-how as searchable Markdown, organised into an arbitrary-depth category tree
• Notes — quick-capture Markdown notes with a split live-preview editor, hierarchical categories, tags, and types
• Prompts — browse versioned prompt files (project -> task -> version -> file)
• Packages — browse local Python/Node packages
• Scripts — organise Scope / C# / Python / PowerShell scripts in a recursive folder tree with:
  • Automatic language tags (e.g. Scope, C#, Python — multiple tags per file)
  • Syntax highlighting (bundled highlight.js + a custom Scope grammar)
  • AI Summary button — Purpose / How it works / Inputs / Output / Issues, cached by content hash
  • In-place editing with confirmation + automatic git commit
• Hierarchical navigation — both the Activity Bar tree and the panel's left nav render arbitrary-depth folders (default collapsed)
• Right-click actions — add a new skill/note/script at a folder, or edit any item, straight from the sidebar
• Full-text search — instant search across all content (CJK-friendly on the MCP side)
• Markdown mirror + git — every note and skill is mirrored to a readable .md file and committed to git automatically
• Sync — share a temporary authenticated link so another machine can pull your knowledge
• MCP server — auto-generated Python server with read and write tools and FTS5 trigram search (CJK-friendly)
• Selectable AI backend — Copilot (built-in), Azure OpenAI, or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint; keys stored in SecretStorage
• Cross-platform — pure-JS SQLite (sql.js), no native binaries

Installation

Install from the VS Code Marketplace or download the .vsix from Releases and run:

code --install-extension personal-knowledge-*.vsix

First run

On first activation the extension asks where to store your knowledge base (use the default ~/personal-knowledge, browse to an existing folder, or type a custom path — it offers to create it). It then initialises the database, a git repository, and an MCP server.

Store directory

<your-store>/
  knowledge.db        <- skills & notes (SQLite)
  skills/             <- markdown mirror (git-tracked)
  notes/              <- markdown mirror (git-tracked)
  prompts/            <- versioned prompt files
  packages/           <- local Python/Node packages
  scripts/            <- Scope / C# / Python / PowerShell scripts
  mcp-server/         <- generated MCP server

Change the location any time via Settings -> Personal Knowledge: Store Path.

How to use

1. Open the panel — click the Personal Knowledge icon in the Activity Bar, or press Ctrl+Shift+K / Cmd+Shift+K.
2. Browse — the left navigation shows your Skills, Notes, Prompts, Packages, and Scripts as collapsible folder trees. Click any item to preview it.
3. Capture knowledge:
   • Select code in any editor -> right-click -> Save Selection as Skill.
   • Press Ctrl+Shift+N / Cmd+Shift+N for a quick note (with live Markdown preview).
   • Right-click a folder in the sidebar -> New Skill / Note / Script Here.
4. Edit — right-click any item -> Edit, or use the ✏ button in the detail view. Script edits are confirmed and committed to git automatically.
5. Understand a script — open any script and click ✨ AI Summary for a purpose / inputs / output / issues breakdown.
6. Share — use the Sync button to hand another machine a temporary authenticated link to pull selected content.
7. Connect an AI assistant — generate an MCP server (see below).

Everything is stored as plain files + SQLite under your chosen folder, mirrored to Markdown, and tracked in git — so you always own your data and have full history.

Why an MCP server?

The extension is where you manage your knowledge. The MCP server is how your AI assistant uses it.

Without it, you end up copy-pasting the same context into every chat, and anything the AI figures out is lost when the session ends. With the MCP server running, any MCP-aware assistant (Claude Desktop, GitHub Copilot, etc.) can:

• Search and read your accumulated skills, notes, and scripts on demand — so it answers with your conventions, gotchas, and past solutions instead of generic guesses.
• Write back new learnings — add_note, update_skill, and friends let the assistant persist what it discovers, turning your knowledge base into a durable, shared memory that grows across sessions.
• Stay in sync — because the server reads the same store the extension writes, edits from either side show up in both, and every write is git-tracked.

In short: the extension gives you a home for your knowledge; the MCP server gives your AI a key to that home, so it can both learn from and contribute to it.

MCP integration

Open the MCP tab in the panel and click Generate MCP Server, then add the shown snippet to your AI client config. The server (named after your store folder) exposes:

Search uses an in-memory FTS5 trigram index (CJK-friendly, ranked) built at startup, with a LIKE fallback for short queries. Writes also update the git-tracked markdown mirror.

AI backend

The AI Summary feature uses the backend selected in Settings -> Personal Knowledge: AI Backend:

• copilot — GitHub Copilot via the built-in VS Code Language Model API (no key needed)
• azure-openai — set endpoint / deployment / API version, then run Personal Knowledge: Set AI API Key
• openai-compatible — any OpenAI-compatible endpoint (OpenAI, vLLM, Ollama, ...)

API keys are stored in VS Code SecretStorage, never in settings.

Keyboard shortcuts

Settings

Building from source

npm install
npm run build
npx vsce package

License

MIT (c) Yu Wang