Getting Started
From download to your first AI-enriched file — get Wikori running in under five minutes.
Requirements
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Operating System | macOS 11+, Windows 10/11, or Linux (Ubuntu 20+) |
| AI API endpoint | Any OpenAI-compatible endpoint. Hosted (OpenAI, Anthropic, OpenRouter, Groq, DeepSeek, Mistral…) or local (Ollama, LM Studio). A small, cheap model is enough — enrichment is a short structured task, not creative writing. |
| API key | A valid key for your chosen endpoint. Not needed at all if you run a local model. |
| Disk space | ~50 MB for the app; vault size depends on your content |
Wikori works with any OpenAI-compatible API. If you don't want to send anything to a cloud service, Ollama running locally is a great free option — indexing then happens entirely on your machine, at zero cost. Either way this is a one-off cost per document: once a file is indexed, searching it and serving it to your AI agents is free forever, because the index and the vector database are local.
Download & Install
Visit wikori.com and download the installer for your operating system.
macOS: Open the .dmg, drag Wikori to Applications. On first launch, right-click → Open to bypass Gatekeeper.
Windows: Run the .exe installer and follow the prompts.
Linux: Use the .AppImage (make it executable with chmod +x) or the .deb package.
Wikori opens to the Home page with an empty vault list. The app icon also appears in your system tray.
macOS Quick Notes hotkey: Wikori needs Accessibility permission to detect the global hotkey. Go to System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility and add Wikori. The app will prompt you automatically on first use.
Create Your First Vault
A vault is a folder on your disk that Wikori monitors and enriches. You can have many — one per project, client, or topic.
Click Settings in the left sidebar.
On the Vaults tab, fill in a Name (e.g. "Research"), optionally an Email Tag, and click Browse to choose a directory — or type a path. Then click Add Vault.
Inside your chosen directory, Wikori creates an INGEST/ subfolder. This is your drop zone. Any file placed here gets processed automatically.
Your new vault appears in the sidebar dropdown. Click it to make it active — all subsequent operations target this vault.
Set Up Your AI Provider
Wikori needs an AI endpoint to enrich your files. Configure it in Settings → AI. This is the one step everything else depends on — without it, files land in the queue and fail.
For OpenAI: https://api.openai.com/v1
For Ollama (local): http://localhost:11434/v1
For Anthropic or others, use their OpenAI-compatible base URL.
Paste your API key. It is encrypted with AES-256-GCM on save and never stored in plaintext.
Click Test Connection. If successful, available models load in the dropdown below.
Choose the model to use for enrichment. For best results use a capable chat model — gpt-4o, claude-3-5-sonnet, or similar.
Click Save Changes at the bottom of the page.
Process Your First File
Either drag it onto the drop zone on the Ingest page, or open your vault's directory in Finder or Explorer and copy any PDF, Word document, image or plain text file into the INGEST/ subfolder. Both routes end up in the same place.
Switch to the Home page. Under the Queue section you'll see the file appear, then move through "processing" and finally disappear as it lands in your vault root.
Open the vault directory. You'll find a .md file with a YAML frontmatter block at the top containing title, summary, entities, tags, and more — all generated by your AI model.
Click Rebuild Index on the Home page. This regenerates index.md and SCHEMA.md, which is what search, the Knowledge Map and your AI agents actually read.
You can also drag files directly to the Ingest page in the app, paste URLs to scrape web pages, or type notes directly — all explained in the Ingesting Content guide.
Connect Your AI Assistant
This is the step that changes how the app feels. Until now Wikori has been organising your files; once an assistant is connected, it can read them.
Click Connect in the sidebar, set an access token, and click Start Server. The badge turns green with the port it is listening on.
Ready-made snippets for Claude Desktop, Cursor, Cline / Roo Code and OpenCode are generated with your token already filled in. Click Copy and paste it into your assistant's settings.
Copy the generated prompt into your assistant's system prompt so it knows how to search your vaults instead of guessing.
Full instructions for every supported assistant are in MCP & AI Agents. Turn on auto-start in Settings and the server comes up with the app from then on.
System Tray
Wikori runs quietly in your system tray. Closing the main window doesn't quit the app — it keeps watching your vault in the background.
| Action | Result |
|---|---|
| Click tray icon | Restores the main window |
| Right-click → Open | Opens the Ingest page |
| Right-click → Settings | Opens Settings |
| Right-click → Quit | Fully exits the app |