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PRKS (Personal Research Knowledge System) is a local research library for organizing PDFs, notes, video references, bibliographic metadata, people, folders, tags, playlists, and structured research concepts. It runs as a self-hosted web application with a Python/SQLite backend and a browser frontend. The shipped shell is still the legacy JavaScript UI; new UI work starts in the Vue 3 source described in Architecture.
The wiki is the orientation layer for users and contributors. It explains how the major parts fit together without replacing the repository's detailed implementation documents.
| Library | Work / PDF | People |
|---|---|---|
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 |
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These screenshots are generated from the repository's synthetic/public-domain demo library rather than a real personal research collection.
- Getting Started — install, run, Docker, testing mode, and storage basics.
- User Guide — the main library and research workflows.
- Workspace Tabs and Split View — tabs, panes, persistence, and navigation.
- PDFs and Annotations — PDF viewing, annotation ownership, search, and materialization.
- Offline and Sync — local-first behavior, durable operations, and reconciliation.
- Storage, Backup, and Restore — canonical data, derived data, backups, and recovery.
- Research Network — Concepts, Positions, Arguments/Stances, and graph views.
- Architecture — system boundaries and request/data flow.
- Domain Model — the main entities and relationships.
- Testing — unit/API/structural tests, browser E2E, and UX tours.
- Development Workflow — where changes belong and how to keep guidance current.
- Developer Reference — detailed contributor commands, tooling, and repository layout.
- Dependencies and Vendoring — dependency policy and the dependency gate.
- Security and Operations — binding, authentication boundary, logging, and security-sensitive behavior.
- Configuration and Operations — environment variables, migrations, logging, and diagnostics.
- Troubleshooting — common startup, data, PDF, offline, and test problems.
- Glossary — PRKS-specific terms.
The wiki intentionally stays higher-level than the following documents:
- README.md
- AGENTS.md
- DESIGN.md
- Local-first sync design
- Local-first rollout status
- E2E performance notes
- Work source identity report
- SECURITY.md
If the wiki and one of those documents disagree about a fast-moving implementation detail, use the authoritative document and update the wiki.