Knowledge Base Template

Template for regulatory and standards knowledge bases published as Open Knowledge Format (OKF) bundles that Meerkat serves as CLI, MCP, or HTTP. It is the shape extracted from CRA-knowledge-base, generalised so every bundle in the series validates the same way.

A bundle built from this template holds concise original summaries with provision-level citations to primary sources. It never reproduces full legal instruments, rules, guidance documents, or standards.

What The Template Provides

Path	Purpose
kb.yaml	Bundle manifest: slug, name, extension key (x-<slug>), allowed categories, top-level sections
wiki/	The OKF bundle. index.md declares okf_version; every declared section has an index.md
tools/validate.py	Manifest-driven validator: frontmatter, extension key, categories, sections, links, footnotes, source register (unregistered ids, used_by drift, unused sources), coverage (by_category, by_type, gates with research-gap stubs), template-identical and near-identical bodies, repeated filler sentences, thin pages, quoted-string metadata, CITATION.cff, scaffold banners and README sections
tools/test_validate.py	Unit tests for the validator
coverage.yaml	Concept counts and coverage gates (pattern, expected, actual, status)
sources.yaml	Register of every primary source and the concepts that use it
.github/workflows/validate.yml	CI: tests and validation on every push and pull request
docs/standards/	Release-notes standard KB-RNS-01 and its template
CONTRIBUTING.md, SECURITY.md, NOTICE, LICENSE, CITATION.cff	Contribution rules, reporting channel, source reuse terms, CC BY 4.0, citation metadata

Create A New Knowledge Base

1. Create the repository from this template.
2. Edit kb.yaml: slug, name, description, extension_key (x-<slug>), the categories the corpus needs, and the sections under wiki/.
3. Create wiki/<section>/index.md for every declared section, describing what belongs there. Nested directories may carry their own index.md.
4. Rewrite README.md: scope, intended corpus, source policy, disclaimer, related bundles.
5. Update CITATION.cff (title, URLs), NOTICE (reuse terms of the source families the bundle cites), and coverage.yaml (gates with expected counts where the corpus is finite, null otherwise).
6. Set repository topics and enable private vulnerability reporting, which SECURITY.md relies on.
7. Run the checks and commit. Ingestion starts afterwards, one sourced concept at a time.

python3 -m pip install -r requirements-dev.txt
python3 -m unittest tools/test_validate.py
python3 tools/validate.py wiki

Conventions Every Bundle Shares

• The concept ID is the path under wiki/ without .md; there is no id field.
• Every concept carries the manifest's extension key with at least checked_at; other x-* keys are rejected.
• Agent-generated content stays status: draft until a human verifies it against the cited source. stable requires verified.
• A standard claims presumption of conformity only with an OJEU citation reference.
• A missing official source is recorded as a research gap, never filled by inference.
• Superseded material is kept and marked deprecated, not deleted.
• coverage.yaml and sources.yaml are updated in the same pull request as the concepts; the validator fails on drift.
• A page that is not written yet carries research_gap: true; gates count only written pages toward expected, so a bundle cannot report pass on stubs.

Use With Meerkat

mk --kb-dir . search "<term>"
mk --kb-dir . show <section>/<concept>
mk --kb-dir . list --category law
mk --kb-dir . mcp serve
mk --kb-dir . http serve --port 4004

The Markdown remains usable without Meerkat or any other tool.

The Series

• CRA-knowledge-base: Regulation (EU) 2024/2847, the origin of this template
• NIS2-knowledge-base: Directive (EU) 2022/2555 and its national transpositions
• CVD-knowledge-base: coordinated vulnerability disclosure, the CVE Program, CSAF, VEX and scoring
• AI-Act-knowledge-base: Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 as amended
• Conformity-Assessment-knowledge-base: the New Legislative Framework, modules, accreditation and notified bodies
• Software-Supply-Chain-knowledge-base: SBOM formats, attestation, provenance and VEX
• NIST-CSF-knowledge-base: NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0

Licence

Original structure, summaries, and metadata are licensed under CC BY 4.0. Source documents and standards retain their own terms; see NOTICE.

This project is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google Cloud or Meerkat.