Modern AI Engineering

Lesson 11.10 · 21 min · video lesson

Open Knowledge Format: Structured Agent-to-Agent Communication

Our company's knowledge lives in wikis, chat threads, spreadsheets and people's heads, so how does an AI agent find the one definition of "active user" that is actually right?

In short: OKF (Open Knowledge Format) is an open, vendor-neutral specification from Google Cloud for writing down curated knowledge as a folder of Markdown files. Each file describes one concept, starts with a small YAML header whose only required field is type, and links to related concepts with ordinary Markdown links. An agent reads the files directly and follows the links like a graph, instead of guessing from scattered search results.

What you will learn

  • The problem: our knowledge is scattered
  • What is OKF?
  • OKF = Open + Knowledge + Format
  • What is inside an OKF bundle?
  • The frontmatter and the one required field
  • Cross-links turn files into a graph
  • Why plain markdown files?
  • How an agent actually uses it
  • OKF, MCP, and Agent Skills
  • What ships with OKF today
  • Summary

In this lesson

  1. The problem: our knowledge is scattered
  2. What is OKF? Open + Knowledge + Format
  3. What is inside an OKF bundle?
  4. The frontmatter and the one required field
  5. Cross-links turn files into a graph
  6. Why plain Markdown files?
  7. How an agent actually uses it
  8. OKF, MCP, and Agent Skills
  9. What ships with OKF today, and its limits
  10. Common mistakes and how to spot them
  11. Practice: try it yourself
  12. Summary

Key terms in this lesson

OKF (Open Knowledge Format)
An open, vendor-neutral spec for storing curated knowledge as linked Markdown files with YAML frontmatter.
Bundle
A directory of OKF concept files, optionally with index.md and log.md.
Concept file
One Markdown file describing one thing (a metric, table, policy, term), identified by its path.
Frontmatter
The YAML metadata block between --- lines at the top of a Markdown file.
Knowledge graph
A network of concepts (nodes) connected by relationships (edges); in OKF the edges are Markdown links.
Curated knowledge
Facts that someone deliberately wrote and reviewed, as opposed to text retrieved from whatever documents exist.

This lesson is part of the Generative AI Engineering and Complete AI Engineer tracks. See plans and pricing to open the full lesson, its video, labs and quiz, or try the free lesson first (free account needed).

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