Why I Still Maintain a Private Wiki in the Age of AI

For a consultant, the most valuable asset isn’t the hardware or certifications —it’s the knowledge. Too often, that knowledge is left behind when you move between clients. You hand back the hardware, lose access to the Jira tickets, and the internal documentation you wrote becomes a ghost in someone else's machine.

Years ago I adopted a private DokuWiki that travelled with me through firewalls, tech changes, and career moves. Here is why, even in the age of LLMs, it remains an important tool.

The Consultant’s Dilemma: Firewalls and "Fading" Skills

Consulting is a nomadic life. You spend months deep in a client’s infrastructure, often behind restrictive firewalls where online resources are a luxury, not a guarantee.

I realised early on that I couldn't rely on the client’s internal systems to store my personal breakthroughs. I needed a knowledge base that moved with me. Whether I was troubleshooting a niche Git conflict or configuring a Linux environment on a locked-down network, I needed my how-tos at my fingertips.

More importantly, technical skills are often cyclical. You might master a specific data engineering pattern or complex code today, only to not touch it again for two years. The wiki lets me offload rote syntax while preserving the underlying concepts. Tools become more refined, but the fundamental logic rarely changes. My wiki bridges those recurring gaps.

From Solo Stash to a Source of Truth

As my role evolved from developer to DevOps and, eventually, to data engineering and mentoring, the wiki evolved with me.

What started as a collection of personal technical hints became a professional force multiplier. When I began mentoring graduates, I noticed the same questions surfacing. Instead of repeating myself, I turned my wiki into a single source of truth. If a colleague encountered a tricky issue I’d already solved, the answer was already there, documented and verified. The wiki was my personal notebook, an asset I used to support my team members, reducing friction and saving hours of redundant troubleshooting.

The AI Inflection: From Librarian to Editor

Why maintain a wiki when you can ask AI?

The answer is Trust. AI is a brilliant generalist, but my wiki is a verified specialist. It contains the exact solutions that worked in specific client environments. However, AI hasn't made my wiki obsolete—it has made it more powerful.

I now use AI as:

• The powerful search tool: Instead of manual scrolling, I use AI to scan my wiki and retrieve specific technical hints instantly.
• A content critic: I use AI to "peer review" my pages, ensuring my tone is consistent and checking for errors or outdated logic.
• An update assistant: When a tool’s functionality improves, I ask AI to help me integrate those new features into my existing core documentation.

AI provides the speed, but the wiki provides the ground truth.

Conclusion: The Future of the Personal Knowledge Base

As AI grows more capable, the way we store information will undoubtedly change. We may eventually reach a point where a manually maintained wiki feels like a relic.

But for now, the act of curation is the act of learning. My wiki is more than a folder of files; it is a documented history of my learning journey. It is the one piece of "infrastructure" I truly own, regardless of which client I’m serving or which tool is currently in fashion.

Amid generative noise, a private, trusted signal still has real value.

Notes

The wiki I'm using is DokuWiki, which is a simple, file-based wiki that doesn't require a database. It's perfect for personal use and can be easily hosted on a private server or even locally on your machine. DokuWiki is written in PHP and has a large community and a wide range of plugins to extend its functionality. If you're looking for a way to maintain your own knowledge base, I highly recommend giving it a try.

As mentioned previously, I use my wiki to learn: I maintain and develop Ansible playbooks to automate setup and customisations. I also use Git to manage the wiki's content, which allows me to track changes and keep it under version control. This setup has been invaluable for keeping my knowledge organised and accessible across different environments.

Avoid storing client‑sensitive or proprietary data in a personal wiki — anonymise or omit such details.