PromptOwl + ContextNest Docs
Contents

Source Nodes Overview

Updated Open in ChatGPTOpen in Claude

Source nodes are documents whose body contains instructions for fetching live data from external services. They are first-class nodes in the context graph — authored, versioned, and checksummed like any other document.

Key distinction

When an agent resolves a type: document node, it reads the body as knowledge to absorb.

When an agent resolves a type: source node, it reads the body as instructions to follow — what calls to make, in what order, with what parameters, and how to interpret the results.

The markdown body is the instruction set. The agent is the execution engine.

Design principle

Frontmatter carries what machines index. The body carries what agents execute.

The frontmatter tells the resolver "this is a source node that uses the Jira MCP server and depends on another source." The body tells the agent "call this tool with these parameters, then use the result like this."

Example

---
title: "Current Sprint Tickets"
type: source
tags: ["#engineering", "#sprint"]
status: published
version: 2
source:
  transport: mcp
  server: jira
  tools: [jira_get_sprint_issues]
  depends_on:
    - contextnest://sources/project-config
  cache_ttl: 300
---

# Current Sprint Tickets

This source provides live sprint data from Jira.

## Fetch the sprint

Call `jira_get_sprint_issues` with:
- **project**: Read from the project-config source
- **sprint**: "current"
- **fields**: summary, status, assignee, priority

## Interpret the results

Group tickets by status (To Do / In Progress / Done).
Flag any ticket marked "blocked" or with no assignee.

Result lifecycle

Source results are session-scoped — they exist in the agent's working memory, not in the vault. The vault stores the authored instructions, not transient API responses.

Related pages

  • FrontmatterEvery Context Nest document begins with a YAML frontmatter block delimited by ---. The frontmatter contains structured metadata that the resolver…
  • Node TypesEvery document in a Context Nest vault has a type field in its frontmatter. The type tells agents how to interpret the content.
  • Core ConceptsContext Nest is built on a small set of composable concepts. Understanding these gives you the full picture of how vaults work.
  • Addressing OverviewContext Nest uses the contextnest:// URI scheme to address documents, sections, tags, and folders within a vault.
  • Context IndexThe context.yaml file is the machine-readable manifest of a Context Nest vault. It is auto-generated by the CLI and serves as the primary entry point for…

Referenced by