Two kinds of navigation

Type: note · Status: current

There are two ways to move through a knowledge base:

Following links — local navigation. You're reading something, you encounter a link, you decide whether to follow it. Each step is short — from one document to a neighbor. The context around the link informs the decision (see agents navigate by deciding what to read next).

Search — long jumps. You have a question or keyword, you query the whole corpus, you land somewhere potentially distant. No local context guides the decision — you rely on search results (titles, snippets, descriptions) to pick a landing point.

Indexes sit in between. An index is a page of links — local navigation in form — but it functions like a curated search result. You jump to an index (often via search or memory), then browse its links to find what you need. The boundary between "navigating links" and "searching" blurs at indexes.

This matters for design: links need surrounding context to inform decisions, search results need good titles and descriptions to enable picking, and indexes need both — they're the bridge.

See also: agents navigate by deciding what to read next, link contracts source material.

Topics:

• links