kb-search — retrieve before you answer

A fast, local, zero-token FTS5 knowledge base over this project's markdown (@blackbelt-technology/pi-dashboard-kb). Retrieval is pull: you call it; nothing is auto-injected. Sub-second, deterministic, costs no model tokens — so call it freely on any uncertainty.

When to Use

• Hit an unknown name / term / error string / config flag / function.
• Need a past decision, convention, or "how we did X".
• About to answer a factual question about this project from memory.
• About to ask the user something the docs may already answer.

Procedure

1. Extract the key entities from the problem (names, error strings, slugs, config keys, function names).
2. Run: kb search "<entities>" --limit 8 --json
3. Read only the top 1–2 hits' full content when needed: kb get <path> --section "<heading_path>"
4. Still unresolved? Walk the graph from a hit: kb neighbors "<heading_path>" --depth 2 and kb backlinks "<path>".
5. Paraphrase miss? Lexical search is weak when your words differ from the docs' words. Reformulate once using the domain's actual terms (synonyms, the real flag/class names) and re-search. Then escalate to the user only if the KB returns nothing relevant.
6. Synthesize from the retrieved sections. Cite the path you used.

Pitfalls

• Do NOT answer project-specific questions from memory without searching first.
• Do NOT read whole files — search returns ranked sections with snippets; open full content only for the top hits.
• Empty result is not a stop sign — reformulate with domain terms once, then ask.
• Filter when you only want rules: kb search "<q>" --doc-type agents.

Verification

• kb search returns ranked {path, headingPath, score, snippet} (lower score = more relevant).
• Freshness is automatic: kb search runs an incremental reindex first unless --no-reindex.
• Requires @blackbelt-technology/pi-dashboard-kb installed (kb on PATH) and a configured source (.pi/dashboard/knowledge_base.json or --source <dir>).