> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://vendo-mintlify-24213046.mintlify.site/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Knowledge

> Connect your product docs so the agent answers how-it-works questions from them, cites what it used, and says it does not know when they do not cover it.

Answers from your docs, with citations.

## The picture

Ask "how long do card refunds take?" and the agent looks it up instead of
guessing. The answer arrives with a **Sources** row under it, one chip per cited
document.

<Frame>
  <img src="https://mintcdn.com/vendo-mintlify-24213046/6bEQTFgPEqe5pjD7/images/maple/knowledge-citations.png?fit=max&auto=format&n=6bEQTFgPEqe5pjD7&q=85&s=cffb66cc54601baba08cc3628097a612" alt="A Maple answer about card refund timing with a Sources row of five citation chips, one open on the snippet it quoted and the document it came from" width="620" height="567" data-path="images/maple/knowledge-citations.png" />
</Frame>

Each chip opens the snippet the answer came from. When your docs do not cover the
question, the turn says so plainly instead of inventing an answer.

`VENDO_API_KEY` is the whole setup. The `knowledge` slot fills with the Cloud
engine, and the agent picks up its `vendo_knowledge_search` tool with no code
change.

## Load your docs

<Steps>
  <Step title="Add them in the console">
    Open [console.vendo.run](https://console.vendo.run/knowledge/sources) and go
    to Knowledge. **Upload files** takes documents straight off your machine.
    **Crawl a URL** points the crawler at a docs site you already publish.

    Indexing takes a few seconds and the page does not spin while it runs.
    Refresh, and the document count tells you the corpus is searchable.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Prove it in the Playground">
    Still in the Knowledge tab, open **Playground** and ask something your docs
    answer. The passage under the green **Would answer** banner is the one the
    agent answers from; a passage marked **Below the bar** was retrieved but not
    cited.
  </Step>
</Steps>

That is the whole setup. In your app the same search tool runs on its own.

## Docs that live in your repo

If your documentation sits next to your code, push it from the repo instead of
uploading by hand.

```bash theme={null}
npx vendo knowledge add "docs/**/*.md"
npx vendo knowledge sync
# Synced: 128 upserted, 0 removed, 0 unchanged → Vendo Cloud (console.vendo.run).
```

`add` only records the source in `.vendo/knowledge.json`. `sync` is the one verb
that moves content: it upserts what changed against the hash manifest at
`.vendo/knowledge-manifest.json` and removes what vanished, so a second run over
unedited files pushes nothing.

### Say what shape a file is

`--kind` decides how a file is cut up. `docs`, the default, chunks prose at
heading boundaries. `glossary` and `api` make every heading its own chunk, which
is what makes an exact term lookup return the term rather than a fuzzy paragraph.

```bash theme={null}
npx vendo knowledge add "glossary.md" --kind glossary
npx vendo knowledge add "docs/api/**/*.md" --kind api
```

A source added with `--visibility internal` answers your own host-wired callers
only: end-user turns never see those documents, and the prompt's index does not
name them. Every verb and flag is in
[the CLI reference](/reference/cli#vendo-knowledge).

### Keep it synced from CI

Run `vendo knowledge sync` after a docs change merges, with `VENDO_API_KEY` set as
a secret. Commit `.vendo/knowledge-manifest.json` so each run only pushes the
documents that changed.