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Load knowledge

Load knowledge

Cabinet uses direct symlinks to bring external folders into your knowledge base without copying anything. The folder stays where it is on disk — Cabinet just creates a pointer to it.

How it works

  1. Right-click any item in the sidebar.
  2. Choose Load Knowledge.
  3. Pick a folder on your machine (or paste the path).
  4. Optionally set a display name.
  5. Click Load.

Cabinet creates a symlink inside the cabinet, e.g. /Users/you/Development/my-repo/ appears as ./my-repo/ in the sidebar tree. Edits stay in the original location.

Why this matters

Most apps make you import or copy. Cabinet works where your data already lives. That means:

  • Code repos appear as folders inside your cabinet — agents can read them.
  • A Notes folder you sync via iCloud / Dropbox can be navigated and searched from Cabinet.
  • A multi-cabinet setup can share a common folder by symlinking it into both.

Tracking metadata about a loaded folder

Add a .cabinet-meta file next to (or inside) the symlink:

# .cabinet-meta
title: My Code Repo
description: Backend monorepo for acme.com.
visibility: cabinet

Cabinet picks up the metadata on next scan. The title shows in the sidebar; the description shows on hover.

Linking a Git repo

If the loaded folder is a git repo, drop a .repo.yaml at its root:

# .repo.yaml
remote: github.com/you/my-repo
branch: main

Cabinet treats it as a Linked Git Repo and gives agents extra context about commits, branches, and history.

CABINET_DATA_DIR

Cabinet looks for cabinets at $CABINET_DATA_DIR (default ~/cabinets/). Set the env var to point at a different location:

export CABINET_DATA_DIR=~/Documents/cabinets

This is useful if you keep cabinets on an encrypted volume or a synced folder.

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