A

Source Material

Source material is the raw input selected for an ingest run. It can be a file, directory, Git diff, commit range, GitHub pull request or issue, URL, or local agent transcript; CodeAlmanac resolves that input into typed source briefs and, when possible, bounded runtime snapshots before the agent writes [@address-resolution] [@source-models] [@sources-service]. Source material is not automatically page evidence. It is material the operation may learn from.

The distinction matters because ingest is a synthesis operation, not a copying operation. The sources manual says selected material may include many forms of input, but adding or discovering material does not imply a wiki update [@sources-manual]. The run decides whether the material changes durable repo knowledge.

From Address To Runtime Snapshot#

An ingest request begins with raw input strings. SourcesService.resolve(...) turns each string into a SourceBrief by passing it through address resolution [@sources-service]. The resolver recognizes GitHub shorthand, Git ranges, Git diffs, transcript references, web URLs, and local paths [@address-resolution].

A source brief identifies the selected material and gives the prompt a provenance hint. Runtime inspection is a second step. SourcesService.inspect_runtime(...) asks the first adapter that supports the source reference to load readable content; when no adapter supports it, the service returns a skipped runtime snapshot [@sources-service].

Source Material Versus Page Sources#

Page sources: frontmatter is different. It records evidence for claims already written into a wiki page. The frontmatter parser accepts structured source entries with an id, type, and a target field such as path, url, commit, pr, issue, run_id, or page depending on the source type [@frontmatter].

That means a file can be both source material and page evidence, but it plays a different role in each place. As source material, it is input to an ingest run. As a sources: entry, it is a named citation target that supports a specific factual claim in the article.

What The Agent Should Do With It#

The ingest manual tells agents not to summarize files, sessions, docs, or conversations. They should distill reusable project meaning from the material [@sources-manual]. A transcript might reveal a durable decision. A diff might reveal an invariant. A file might support a page about a workflow. If the material adds no durable wiki knowledge, no-op is valid.

This is why source material belongs near the source-resolution architecture, while page evidence belongs near the page-format reference. The two concepts meet during ingest, but they should not be collapsed.

The architecture path is Source resolution and runtime. Exact accepted input forms belong in Source addresses. The page evidence format belongs in Frontmatter and sources.