KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT FOR AGENTS

CHAPTER SUMMARY Knowledge management organizes, packages, and maintains what agents know. Structured project documents give every agent the same starting rules, and should be specific, concise, and kept as a single source of truth. Skills are packaged, reusable bundles of instructions, examples, and required fields that make agent output consistent, ideally loaded only when needed and reviewed before adoption. Scratchpads and notes extend an agent's memory beyond the context window, but errors in them can persist, so mark uncertain items. Stale information is dangerous, so record dates and owners, set review intervals by category, flag overdue items, link to live sources, and re-index after changes. KEY TERMS REVIEW Knowledge base: an organized collection of information for agents and people. Structured project document: a single written file describing how a project works. Skill: a packaged reusable capability with instructions and materials. Progressive disclosure: loading detail only when needed. Scratchpad: a file an agent uses for working notes. Stale information: once-correct information that is now out of date. Provenance: the origin and date of a piece of information. Source of truth: the one authoritative place for a fact.