KB4IT - Turn your Markdown files into a browsable knowledge base

KB4IT turns a folder of Markdown (.md) files with YAML frontmatter into a fast, static, property-indexed website. No database, no JavaScript framework, no runtime. Write in plain text, commit to git, generate the site, serve the static files anywhere.

• Markdown native - sources are plain .md files with a YAML frontmatter block; rendered with python-markdown plus the extra, admonition, toc, and sane_lists extensions.
• Serverless output - plain HTML/CSS, host on GitHub Pages, S3, nginx, or just open index.html.
• Smart incremental builds - only changed documents and their key/value index pages are recompiled, driven by per-document body and metadata hashes (blake2b).
• Property-driven navigation - every frontmatter property becomes a filterable index page automatically.
• Four themes out of the box - techdoc, blog, bookshelf and apphelp - plus a custom-theme directory under ~/.kb4it/opt/resources/themes/.

Documentation: t00m.github.io/KB4IT - install, write, build, publish, themes and development notes.

Live demos

See KB4IT in action with the bundled themes:

• techdoc - t00mterías
• blog - t00m's tech notes

Source format

Every KB4IT document is a Markdown file beginning with a YAML frontmatter block. The closing --- is the only header boundary; the title comes from the first # H1 heading, not from the frontmatter.

---
Author: Tomás Vírseda
Category: Procedure
Date: 2026-05-19
DocType: How-to guide
OS: Linux
Tag: backup, housekeeping
---

# Daily backup runbook

## Procedure

1. …

Frontmatter values are either scalars or comma-separated lists. Property names are case-sensitive and singular (Tag, Product, OS).

Quick start

# 1. Install KB4IT (see Installation below)
uv tool install KB4IT

# 2. Create a new knowledge base
kb4it create techdoc ~/mykb

# 3. Drop your .md files into ~/mykb/source/

# 4. Build the website
kb4it build ~/mykb/config/repo.json

# 5. Open it
xdg-open ~/mykb/target/index.html

Why KB4IT?

• "I just want to drop .md files in a folder"
• "I want my metadata (Author, Category, Status…) to become navigation automatically"
• "I want the output to be static HTML

Installation

uv - recommended, fastest:

uv tool install KB4IT

Install uv with curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh if you don't have it yet.

pipx - classic isolated install:

pipx install KB4IT

pip:

pip install --user KB4IT

From source:

git clone https://github.com/t00m/KB4IT && cd KB4IT
uv tool install . --force

Requirements

• GNU/Linux (tested on Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora)
• Python ≥ 3.11
• Mako (templating), Markdown (Markdown → HTML), PyYAML (frontmatter), lxml (post-processing) - all installed automatically

Usage

kb4it create <theme> <repo_path>        # scaffold a new repo
kb4it build <config.json>               # build the site (incremental)
kb4it build <config.json> --force       # force recompile everything
kb4it info <config.json>                # show repo stats
kb4it themes                            # list available themes
kb4it apps <theme>                      # list theme apps
kb4it --version                         # show version

A KB4IT repository is just three directories and a config file:

mykb/
├── config/
│   └── repo.json       # title, theme, source, target, …
├── source/             # your .md files
└── target/             # generated static website (output)

Configuration

A minimal repo.json only needs four required keys:

{
  "title":  "My Knowledge Base",
  "theme":  "techdoc",
  "source": "/home/me/mykb/source",
  "target": "/home/me/mykb/target"
}

Required (validated at load time with a clear per-key error):

• title - site title shown in the navbar and <title>
• theme - techdoc / blog or a custom theme name
• source - absolute path to the directory holding .md files
• target - absolute path where the static site will be written

Common optional keys honoured by the bundled themes:

• tagline - short subtitle
• force - force full rebuild on every run (overridden by --force)
• workers - parallel compiler workers (default: CPU_COUNT / 2)
• ignored_keys - frontmatter keys excluded from navigation
• events - frontmatter categories treated as calendar events
• logo, logo_alt - paths to navbar logo assets

Themes

• techdoc - Technical documentation, runbooks, knowledge bases. Dense, searchable, property-heavy navigation.
• blog - Chronological posts with tags / categories.
• apphelp - Help site for an application. Works from file://, from a GitHub Pages subpath and embedded in the app; strict metadata and offline search. Start with kb4it create apphelp <path>.

Custom themes live in ~/.kb4it/opt/resources/themes/<your-theme>/.

Contributing

Contributions are very welcome - especially bug reports with a minimal reproducing repo, new themes, documentation improvements, and performance work on the compiler / builder.

git clone https://github.com/t00m/KB4IT
cd KB4IT
uv tool install . --force
kb4it --version

Open an issue before starting a large change so we can align on the approach.

Roadmap / known limitations

• No online editor
• Pseudo-dynamic search - KB4IT aims to stay small and serverless.
• API is still evolving; minor releases may change internals.

Credits

• Python - the language KB4IT is written in.
• python-markdown - Markdown to HTML conversion.
• Mako - server-side templating.
• UIKit - the front-end framework used by the bundled themes.
• Geany - the editor used to build KB4IT.

License

KB4IT is released under the GNU GPL v3 or later.

Contact

Tomás Vírseda (aka t00m) - tomasvirseda@gmail.com

If KB4IT is useful to you, star the repo - it genuinely helps me decide where to spend time. Issues, ideas, and PRs are all welcome.