Kiso

Kiso is a publishing engine that turns Open Knowledge Format bundles into static websites for humans and AI agents (search engine, llms.txt and sitemap.xml included).

Kiso cli quick start

If you need an OKF bundle to test Kiso, you can download our sample OKF bundle from the Kiso website. Once downloaded, unzip it.

Download the latest release of Kiso for your operating system from the releases page, then run:

./kiso-cli check --source=examples/kb-google-example

The check command validates the Markdown files in the OKF bundle and reports formatting or structural errors (it also reports broken links as warnings). Once the bundle is valid, build the static website:

./kiso-cli build --source=examples/kb-google-example --destination=public

You will find the generated static website in the public directory. You can open the index.html file in your browser to view the generated site.

If you use the native Kiso binary and want Kiso to generate social network preview images, install one of the supported native SVG to PNG conversion tools: rsvg-convert, inkscape, or resvg.

Kiso cli with GitHub Action

You can use Kiso CLI in GitHub Action to automatically build your OKF bundles into static websites whenever you push changes to your repository. Here's an example workflow configuration:

- name: Build with Kiso
  uses: oak-invest/kiso/applications/[email protected]
  with:
    command: build
    source: examples/kb-google-example
    destination: website/examples/kb-google-example-latest

Commands

Command	Description
`check`	Validates the Markdown files in an OKF bundle and reports formatting or structural errors.
`build`	Generates a static website, including the original Markdown files, HTML pages, `llms.txt`, and `sitemap.xml`.

CLI options

Variable	Command	Default	Description
`source`	`check`, `build`	`.`	Directory containing the Markdown files to read. Defaults to the current directory.
`destination`	`build`	`public`	Directory where generated files are created. Defaults to the `public` directory.
`profile`	`build`		Publishing profile loaded from `.kiso/<profile>/configuration.yaml`.

Configuration file

The build command can be configured with an optional .kiso/configuration.yaml file located at the root of the source bundle. When the file or one of its sections is absent, Kiso uses safe default values.

site:
  baseUrl: https://knowledge.example.com/
  name: Example Knowledge Base
  language: en
  title: My knowledge base
  description: Documentation for humans and AI agents

theme:
  name: corporate

content:
  ignorePatterns:
    - README.md
    - drafts/**
    - private/**

Property	Default	Description
`site.baseUrl`		Public base URL prepended to generated site links and sitemap entries.
`site.name`		Name of the site, used in the social share.
`site.language`	`en`	Language used by the generated HTML pages.
`site.title`	Page title	Title used for the root index page.
`site.description`	Page description	Description used for the root index page.
`theme.name`	`light`	DaisyUI theme used by the generated website.
`content.ignorePatterns`	`[]`	Glob patterns identifying files and directories that must not be copied or published.

Ignore patterns are evaluated against paths relative to the bundle root. For example, README.md excludes only the root README, while drafts/** excludes the contents of the drafts directory. The source bundle is never modified: Kiso applies these exclusions while copying files to the destination directory, before loading, validating, and publishing the resulting bundle.

Publishing profiles

Publishing profiles allow the same OKF bundle to be published in different ways without changing its source content. Store profiles in .kiso/<profile-name>/configuration.yaml and select one with --profile:

kiso build
kiso build --profile public
kiso build --profile internal

When no profile is selected, Kiso loads .kiso/configuration.yaml. When a profile is selected, Kiso loads only that profile's configuration; the default configuration is not read or merged.