Vault Reader
§ 00 · Frontispiece
For the LLM wiki pattern

Your Claude Code wiki,open in your pocket.

Claude Code compiles a markdown wiki from your sources and pushes it to GitHub. Vault Reader is the native iOS reader for that wiki. Offline after the first sync, with on-device AI for page summaries and vault-wide questions. Works for any markdown repository, with extra care for Obsidian vaults.

Download on the App StoreHow it fits
Vault Reader's AI screen answering a question across the whole wiki
Fig. · Vault Reader
Ask questions across the whole wiki. Answers stay on-device.
§ 01
“a large fraction of my recent token throughput is going less into manipulating code, and more into manipulating knowledge (stored as markdown and images).”

The pattern is simple. You collect raw sources. An LLM compiles them into a structured wiki of markdown files: summaries, cross-references, categorized articles, backlinks. You ask questions against the wiki. The answers feed back into the wiki. Karpathy calls it an LLM wiki.

He described it publicly on April 2, 2026, then published a follow-up gist on April 4, 2026 that generalizes the approach into an “idea file.” Claude Code is a natural fit on the writing side: it edits many files at once, maintains consistency, and keeps cross-references coherent as the wiki grows.

Karpathy uses Obsidian as the desktop “IDE” for browsing. The piece the pattern was missing is what you do when you are away from your desk. That is what Vault Reader is for.

§ 02

Three pieces.One workflow.

  1. Step 01

    Claude Code compiles the wiki

    You drop sources into raw/. Claude Code reads them, writes and updates markdown files, maintains cross-references, and logs what changed.

  2. Step 02

    GitHub stores the wiki

    Commit and push. Public or private repo; Vault Reader handles either.

  3. Step 03

    Vault Reader reads it on iPhone

    First sync downloads everything. After that, only files whose SHAs changed come down. Read, search, and ask questions offline.

Claude Code owns the wiki. Vault Reader is read-only; it cannot modify your repository.

§ 03
The best knowledge base is the one you can open in line at the coffee shop.

An LLM wiki earns its keep when you can query it anywhere: on the train, between meetings, at the dinner table. Desktop access alone leaves most of your day on the floor.

Most of us do not want to edit on a 6-inch screen anyway. A dedicated reader is calmer than a full editor with a plugin surface, and it is faster to open when you only have a minute.

On-device AI via Apple Foundation Models means the wiki never leaves the device. No cloud inference, no API keys, no analytics. One-tap page summaries and vault-wide questions all run on the iPhone itself.

If you keep a clean personal vault and a messier agent-maintained wiki separate (kepano made the case for this in reply to Karpathy), Vault Reader supports multiple repositories on the Pro tier so you can point it at both without mixing them.

§ 04
Present

What works today

  • [[Wikilinks]] between LLM-generated pages
    Claude Code tends to link pages heavily. Vault Reader resolves wikilinks locally against your cached files.
  • YAML frontmatter and tags
    Frontmatter stays hidden from the rendered page. Tags surface as small chips above the title.
  • > TLDR: callouts
    The summary line that LLMs tend to write at the top of a page is highlighted as a card.
  • SHA-based incremental sync
    Claude Code edits land on the next sync without re-downloading the whole wiki. Only files whose contents changed are re-fetched.
  • Full-text search
    Across every cached page.
  • Offline by default
    Read and query without a signal after the first sync.
  • On-device AI page summaries
    One-tap summary of the open page using Apple Foundation Models.
  • Vault-wide Q&A
    Ask a question across the wiki; top relevant pages are used as context. Nothing leaves the iPhone.
Forthcoming

What is not in v1

  • Editing the wiki
    Read-only in v1. Your agent (Claude Code or otherwise) remains the writer.
  • Mermaid diagrams
    Treated as a plain code block for now.
  • LaTeX / math blocks
    Not rendered.
  • ![[file]] embeds
    Image and note embeds are not parsed yet.
  • iPad and Mac
    iPhone only in v1.

Want one of these soon? Send a feature request.

§ 05
From the builder

Why I built this.

I run this setup myself. Claude Code maintains a personal wiki from articles and papers I feed it; the wiki lives in a GitHub repository I control. I built Vault Reader because I wanted to read that wiki and ask it questions from my iPhone, without a subscription sync service and without sending my notes to a cloud AI.

Offline reading, wikilinks between pages, and on-device AI all fell out of that one requirement.

Zac Minner, Minner Labs

§ 06

Questions aboutthe LLM wiki setup.

Q.01
Do I need to use Claude Code specifically?
No. Any LLM or agent that can write markdown to a GitHub repository works. Claude Code is what this page describes because it's what the author uses. Vault Reader reads the repository regardless of who wrote into it.
Q.02
Do I need Obsidian?
No. Obsidian is one way to browse the wiki on a desktop, and Karpathy uses it for that. Vault Reader reads the GitHub repository directly and does not require Obsidian to be installed anywhere.
Q.03
Does Vault Reader write to the wiki?
No. Vault Reader is read-only. Only your agent (Claude Code or otherwise) writes to the wiki. That keeps the reading surface safe to point at production repositories.
Q.04
Does the AI send my wiki to a server?
No. The AI uses Apple Foundation Models, which run entirely on the iPhone. Prompts and responses never leave the device. Page summaries and vault-wide questions are both on-device.
Q.05
Can I keep an "agent vault" separate from my personal vault?
Yes. Vault Reader supports multiple repositories on the Pro tier, so you can point one slot at an agent-maintained wiki and another at a vault you curate by hand, without mixing them.
Q.06
How big a wiki can this handle?
Larger than most personal wikis get. Sync fetches the full repository tree once, then compares each file’s blob SHA against the local copy and only re-downloads files whose contents changed. A wiki of several hundred articles refreshes in seconds after the first sync.
Q.07
Does this work with the Obsidian Git plugin?
Yes. If your wiki lives in a GitHub repository, the plugin is just one way to get it there. See the Obsidian-specific page for more detail.
Q.08
Is there a subscription?
Reading is free. The Pro tier (one-time or monthly) unlocks on-device AI for summaries and vault-wide questions, plus extra repositories and additional themes. The reader itself stays free forever.
§ 06 · Coda

Bring your vaultwith you.

A calmer way to read the GitHub notes you already have. iPhone, iOS 26+. Free to read.

Download on the App StoreComing soon to the App Store