WIKI_STYLES.md

Wiki styles

Repowise generates wiki pages in a configurable style that controls the voice and density of the prose, without changing the structural markdown (headings and sections stay the same, so search, the table of contents, and cross-links keep working).

Built-in styles

Style	Best for	What it reads like
comprehensive	The default. Humans and AI.	Full, narrative documentation.
caveman	AI agents, token budgets.	Token-condensed fragments, ~70% smaller.
reference	Library consumers.	API-manual: signature-dense, minimal narrative.
tutorial	New contributors.	Guided, beginner-friendly walkthroughs.

List the available styles (and the repo's current one):

repowise wiki-styles

Choosing a style

At init (full mode), pick a style with a flag or the interactive prompt:

repowise init --wiki-style caveman

The choice is saved to .repowise/config.yaml (wiki_style:), so repowise update keeps regenerated pages in the same style.

Switching styles

Switching regenerates every page in the new voice. Use the dedicated command — it reuses the existing index and git data, so no re-resolution or re-blame is needed:

repowise restyle reference

In the web app, the repo Settings → Documentation style selector does the same: it saves the style and offers to regenerate the wiki. Individual pages can also be regenerated in a one-off style from the page's Regenerate control.

Note: editing wiki_style in config.yaml by hand and running repowise update will not regenerate existing pages (that path only re-scores health). Use repowise restyle to apply a style change.

Custom styles (power users)

Define your own style under .repowise/styles/<name>/style.yaml:

# .repowise/styles/terse/style.yaml
description: Ultra-terse internal style
onboarding_condenses: true        # also condense the onboarding pages
style_version: 1                  # bump when you edit this file to force regen
system_note: |
  Write for senior engineers who know the domain. Be extremely concise.
user_directive: |
  Write in TERSE style.
  - Keep every required ## heading; bodies are short fragments.
  - No filler, no restating the heading, no closing summary.
  - Keep code identifiers and paths verbatim.

Then apply it:

repowise restyle terse

Optionally ship per-page-type Jinja templates in .repowise/styles/<name>/templates/ (same filenames as the built-in templates, e.g. file_page.j2). They override the built-ins for the page types you supply; anything you don't provide falls back to the default template.

Guard rails: style names must match [a-z0-9][a-z0-9_-]*; directive and note text are length-bounded; a style with neither a directive nor a note is ignored. Built-in style names always take precedence over a custom directory of the same name.