Repository Method - Agnostic Knowledge

Start broad, then add depth

The library grows in passes. The first pass asks simple questions: What is this? What broad materials, processes or capabilities does it depend on? What does it help make possible? Later passes add variants, components, intermediate states, measurements, tools, skills, places, time periods, alternatives and uncertainty.

That order makes the library useful to simple games before every subject has received a doctoral thesis and a ceremonial hat. New detail can refine an earlier connection, split it into several variants or show that it applies only in certain places or periods.

Connect knowledge without making game rules

AK records relationships such as “made from,” “requires a process,” “used for,” “possible alternative” and “appeared during this period.” A relationship keeps its meaning and direction. A game may then choose how much of that graph to show and how to translate it into gameplay.

For example, iron ore, iron production and an iron tool can be connected without claiming that every deposit is an economic reserve, that a road means a player can use it, or that a player has discovered the ore. Similar words sometimes mean different things; this is one place where labels earn their lunch.

Use enough evidence for the claim

Routine facts do not need automatic triple-checking. Established general knowledge or one adequate reputable source is normally enough. Important disagreement, ambiguity, changing information, safety, licensing, politics, identity and major corrections receive deeper review.

Approximate dates stay approximate. If a century is all the evidence supports, AK records the century rather than inventing a day and polishing it until it looks official. Missing knowledge is returned as a gap or partial answer, not guessed into existence.

Keep a useful history

Research first becomes a proposed record. Review decides whether it is accepted, deferred, rejected or needs more work. The library keeps where accepted claims came from and which later correction replaced them. Stable identities and versioned releases let a consumer say which state of the library it used.

This website publishes the method and carefully selected safe examples. The complete research corpus, source material, proposed records and private consumer context remain non-public by default.

Repository Methodology

Agnostic Knowledge is a shared library of real-world things and the relationships between them. It is meant to give games, simulations, educational tools and development agents a reusable starting point without turning that knowledge into one consumer's rules.

The work proceeds from broad coverage toward deeper detail. Early passes connect resources, technologies, products, capabilities and major dependencies so a simple game can ask useful questions. Later passes add manufacturing methods, variants, components, intermediate states, measurements, tools, skills, places, periods, alternatives and uncertainty. Useful detail encountered along the way can be kept, while promising sources are noted for later research.

New research is proposed, reviewed and then added through a controlled change. For routine facts, established general knowledge or one adequate reputable source is normally sufficient. Deeper checking is reserved for meaningful disagreement, ambiguity, changing information, safety, licensing, politics, identity, corrections or a consumer need. Dates use the precision the evidence actually supports: an exact date when known, otherwise an honest year, decade, century or millennium.

For example, AK can connect timber to boards, shaped wheel parts and a wooden cart wheel. A more detailed answer can also include tools, skills, an optional iron tyre and the period in which a particular design is attested. A game may compress that into “wood + iron,” but the simplification does not rewrite the underlying knowledge.

AK keeps the identity of each thing separate from claims about it. It also keeps sources, review decisions, confidence, uncertainty, safety, licence, place and time as separate pieces of context where they matter. “Provenance” is the history of where a claim came from and what later happened to it. Corrections add to that history rather than quietly rewriting it.

Consumers can choose a broad or detailed view from a known version of the library. Missing coverage stays visible, and no percentage pretends to measure how much of all human knowledge has been captured. This public site explains the method; the full corpus, source material, private requests and operationally sensitive detail remain non-public by default. AK is still being built, and its coverage is incomplete and uneven.