Processing Methodology

Our evolving pipeline for processing notes into wiki knowledge. This document gets refined as we learn what works.

Current stage: Phase 1 — Manual dialogue-driven processing. Learning what works. Session 1: 2026-04-08. Processed 7 of 25 pinned notes. Created 18 wiki pages. Next up: “Requests for courses + resources” (2021-08-02).

Pipeline

1. Read & Present

Claude quotes the entire note verbatim — no modifications, no edits, no commentary, no analysis. Just the raw text. No section labels, no “this note has three parts.” Just the note.

2. Ask

Claude asks: “How should we process this?” Nothing more. No leading questions, no suggestions about what resonates or has evolved. Let Andrew lead.

3. Dialogue

Andrew directs the processing. Claude follows Andrew’s lead on what to discuss, extract, connect, or create. Tangents are welcome — some of the best wiki pages emerged from tangents during processing (e.g., Context Dumps emerged while processing the courses note).

4. Wiki Integration

Based on dialogue, Claude:

• Creates new wiki pages for distinct ideas
• Updates existing wiki pages with new connections
• Adds [[wikilinks]] between related pages
• Adds ## Next Steps sections with per-idea TODOs where relevant

5. Meta Update

Claude:

• Appends a session entry to _meta/log.md
• Checks off the note in the Queue section
• Updates _meta/index.md if new theme clusters emerged
• Updates Andrew’s List of Lists if new major lists/collections surfaced

6. Commit

Commit every few notes (batches of 3-5 work well). Don’t wait until the end of a session.

7. Reflect (every 5-10 notes)

Pause and ask: What patterns are emerging? Is the structure working? What themes keep recurring? Update this process document.

How Notes Get Processed — Patterns We’ve Seen

Not every note becomes a single wiki page. Here are the patterns that emerged:

1. Note → its own page: The note is a coherent idea and becomes a wiki page with the same or similar title. (e.g., “My principles” → My Principles)

2. Note → multiple pages: The note contains several distinct ideas worth separating. (e.g., “Working Notes TXT & TODO” → Thoughts on America + Lessons From Teaching Fractal Bootcamp)

3. Multiple notes → one combined page: Two or more notes cover the same territory and should be merged. Preserve metadata about when each was written — don’t pretend the same person wrote everything at the same time. (e.g., “Problems that need solving” + “Important ideas…” → Open Problems)

4. Note spawns concept pages: The dialogue surfaces a concept that deserves its own page even though the source note doesn’t directly describe it. (e.g., “The COVID blues” → Cultural Black Holes + Cultural White Holes)

5. Note spawns meta pages: Processing reveals something about the wiki itself or Andrew’s thinking process. (e.g., “Advice for Young People” → What Do I Want From This Wiki + Good Ideas)

6. Note is a working scratch file: The note itself isn’t worth preserving, but fragments within it belong elsewhere. Split and discard the container.

Voice & Style

• Andrew’s words: Use direct quotes cleaned of filler (uhms, ahs) but otherwise faithful to what he said. Preserve his voice.
• Claude’s words: When Claude writes about Andrew, use “Andrew” in third person. Makes it clear the wiki is written by two minds.
• Everything is a draft: Tag draft: true in YAML frontmatter for things that should be published eventually, but don’t over-categorize. In a sense, everything is a draft.
• No imposed analysis: Don’t tell Andrew what his note “means.” Don’t analyze sections. Present the raw note and let him lead.

Key Conventions

• Frontmatter: title, created, updated, notes (source files), optionally draft: true, priority: high
• Wikilinks: Always use [[wikilinks]] for internal connections
• Next Steps: Per-idea TODOs go on the wiki pages in ## Next Steps sections, not in a central backlog
• List of Lists: Andrew’s List of Lists is a priority page — update it when new major lists or collections emerge
• What Do I Want From This Wiki: What Do I Want From This Wiki is a living note — keep returning to it as the purpose evolves
• Recovered content: Can use Wayback Machine to recover deleted tweets and other lost web content. Preserve full text with metadata (author, date, archive URL).
• Context dumps: Many of Andrew’s notes are context dumps — documents that transfer accumulated knowledge about a topic. The wiki itself is a context dump about Andrew’s ideas.

Definitions That Emerged

• Lessons are affordance-shaped ideas — ideas which help us understand and utilize the affordances in our lives.
• Context dumps are documents that transfer full background and accumulated knowledge from one mind to another. Should become a medium of their own.
• Breadcrumbs are a lighter form of context dump — they collect and curate without self-describing. The links tell the story.
• Cultural black holes are phenomena with gravity wells that pull attention and mood downward.
• Cultural white holes are the opposite — where creativity and love come from.

Themes That Keep Recurring

1. Affordances — helping people discover and utilize their affordances (principle #1)
2. Frontiers — edges of knowledge, technology, culture worth pushing on
3. Good ideas — surfacing, connecting, sharing, and publishing good ideas
4. Publishing — many notes are unpublished drafts that should see the world
5. Production over consumption — real value comes from creating, not mimicking
6. Education — how people learn, what schools should be, Fractal Bootcamp
7. Lists and collections — Andrew is a prolific collector of links, resources, and curated lists

Growth Note

If this file grows too large, separate stages into individual process files (e.g., process-ingest.md, process-thread.md, process-publish.md). Eventually this could become a skill with sub-skills and agent pipelines.