{"id":11081,"date":"2026-07-06T21:39:48","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T13:39:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/?p=11081"},"modified":"2026-07-06T21:39:48","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T13:39:48","slug":"build-an-okf-brain-like-mine-via-sejournal-marie_haynes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/?p=11081","title":{"rendered":"Build An OKF Brain Like Mine! via @sejournal, @marie_haynes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p> <div id=\"narrow-cont\"> <p>My last piece on Google\u2019s Open Knowledge Format (OKF) was one of the most popular I\u2019ve ever published. Since then, I have been heads down working on my own OKF structure. I\u2019ve essentially built my own personal brain, and today, I want to show you how it works and why this standard is so incredibly important for the shift toward an agentic web.<\/p> <p>The beauty of OKF is that it follows a very simple, standardized structure. While many people have pointed out that markdown files are nothing new, what Google has done is create a standard. This means if I give an agent my OKF files, it knows exactly how to read them without needing custom software. It is a universal language for AI agents.<\/p> <p><strong>Watch the video of me showing my OKF brain:<\/strong><\/p> <p><iframe class=\"sej-iframe-auto-height\" id=\"in-content-iframe\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/www.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-json\/sscats\/v2\/tk\/Middle_Post_Text\"><\/iframe><\/p> <p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Build an OKF brain like mine!\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/esYAIA6lU-s?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p> <h2>Understanding The YAML Frontmatter, Index, And Markdown Files<\/h2> <p>Every OKF file starts with what is called YAML frontmatter. This is a small block of metadata at the top of your markdown file that tells an agent exactly what it\u2019s looking at. In my personal brain, I use specific types for everything. I have concepts, entities, playbooks, references, and systems.<\/p> <p>Here is what my folder structure looks like for my OKF brain:<\/p> <figure id=\"attachment_580679\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 655px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/okf-brain-structure-1782484055344-76.png\"  width=\"655\" height=\"188\" class=\"size-full wp-image-580679\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/okf-brain-structure-1782484055344-76-384x110.png 384w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/okf-brain-structure-1782484055344-76-425x122.png 425w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/okf-brain-structure-1782484055344-76-480x138.png 480w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/okf-brain-structure-1782484055344-76-650x188.png 650w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/okf-brain-structure-1782484055344-76.png 655w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 655px) 100vw, 655px\" loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Build An OKF Brain Like Mine! via @sejournal, @marie_haynes\u63d2\u56fe\" alt=\"Build An OKF Brain Like Mine! via @sejournal, @marie_haynes\u63d2\u56fe\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">I am not sure why Antigravity misspelled \u201centities\u201d in my brain. (Image Credit: Marie Haynes)<\/figcaption><\/figure> <p>And here is the markdown code for one of the concepts in my brain:<\/p> <figure id=\"attachment_580678\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 943px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/yaml-frontmatter-1782484293227-943x1024-380.jpg\"  width=\"943\" height=\"1024\" class=\"size-full wp-image-580678\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/yaml-frontmatter-1782484293227-943x1024-380-384x417.jpg 384w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/yaml-frontmatter-1782484293227-943x1024-380-425x462.jpg 425w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/yaml-frontmatter-1782484293227-943x1024-380-480x521.jpg 480w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/yaml-frontmatter-1782484293227-943x1024-380-680x738.jpg 680w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/yaml-frontmatter-1782484293227-943x1024-380-768x834.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/yaml-frontmatter-1782484293227-943x1024-380-850x923.jpg 850w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/yaml-frontmatter-1782484293227-943x1024-380.jpg 943w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 943px) 100vw, 943px\" loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Build An OKF Brain Like Mine! via @sejournal, @marie_haynes\u63d2\u56fe1\" alt=\"Build An OKF Brain Like Mine! via @sejournal, @marie_haynes\u63d2\u56fe1\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image Credit: Marie Haynes<\/figcaption><\/figure> <p>When an agent views my OKF, it first views the index file. This index.md file is essentially an index of the different areas the agent can access in my brain. This way, instead of my agent having to do RAG across <em>everything<\/em> in my knowledge base, it can focus specifically on the areas that are relevant.<\/p> <figure id=\"attachment_580675\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 878px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/index.md-for-my-brain-1782484470123-878x1024-63.jpg\"  width=\"878\" height=\"1024\" class=\"size-full wp-image-580675\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/index.md-for-my-brain-1782484470123-878x1024-63-384x448.jpg 384w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/index.md-for-my-brain-1782484470123-878x1024-63-425x496.jpg 425w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/index.md-for-my-brain-1782484470123-878x1024-63-480x560.jpg 480w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/index.md-for-my-brain-1782484470123-878x1024-63-680x793.jpg 680w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/index.md-for-my-brain-1782484470123-878x1024-63-768x896.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/index.md-for-my-brain-1782484470123-878x1024-63-850x991.jpg 850w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/index.md-for-my-brain-1782484470123-878x1024-63.jpg 878w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 878px) 100vw, 878px\" loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Build An OKF Brain Like Mine! via @sejournal, @marie_haynes\u63d2\u56fe2\" alt=\"Build An OKF Brain Like Mine! via @sejournal, @marie_haynes\u63d2\u56fe2\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image Credit: Marie Haynes<\/figcaption><\/figure> <p>The system I built also works to connect related concepts. When it ingests a new piece of content, whether it\u2019s a blog post I\u2019ve written, a Google announcement, or a piece of research, it finds what other concepts we have created that should be connected. The result is a really cool graph of all of the knowledge we have in the brain. This idea of agents extracting concepts and making connections comes from Andrej Karpathy\u2019s LLM Wiki idea.<\/p> <h2>Visualizing Your Knowledge Graph<\/h2> <p>When you use OKF correctly, you can visualize your brain as a connected graph. Every dot in my system is a markdown file. You can see how my concepts for AI Overviews connect to my references from Google\u2019s documentation and my internal playbooks. It\u2019s a living, breathing map of everything I know about SEO and AI.<\/p> <p>I\u2019m also automating how I ingest information. I have a system that checks Google\u2019s documentation daily. If they update something, like the documentation on AI Answers or Search Console features, my brain notifies me and automatically updates the relevant reference files. I don\u2019t have to rely on my biological hardware to remember every small change anymore. My OKF brain has access to far more than I could ever keep in my head at once.<\/p> <figure id=\"attachment_580676\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 1024px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/my-okf-brain-1782484668328-1024x865-361.jpg\"  width=\"1024\" height=\"865\" class=\"size-full wp-image-580676\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/my-okf-brain-1782484668328-1024x865-361-384x324.jpg 384w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/my-okf-brain-1782484668328-1024x865-361-425x359.jpg 425w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/my-okf-brain-1782484668328-1024x865-361-480x405.jpg 480w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/my-okf-brain-1782484668328-1024x865-361-680x574.jpg 680w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/my-okf-brain-1782484668328-1024x865-361-768x649.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/my-okf-brain-1782484668328-1024x865-361-850x718.jpg 850w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/my-okf-brain-1782484668328-1024x865-361.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Build An OKF Brain Like Mine! via @sejournal, @marie_haynes\u63d2\u56fe3\" alt=\"Build An OKF Brain Like Mine! via @sejournal, @marie_haynes\u63d2\u56fe3\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image Credit: Marie Haynes<\/figcaption><\/figure> <p>I can then query my brain, and it will write something for me that is synthesized from my notes and the other information I\u2019ve chosen to store in my brain. If something seems off to me, then I can simply ask the agent within my brain to correct it. Also, my agent is always looking for ways to improve and connect the information that is in the brain.<\/p> <figure id=\"attachment_580677\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 905px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/talking-to-my-okf-brain-1782485041776-905x1024-803.jpg\"  width=\"905\" height=\"1024\" class=\"size-full wp-image-580677\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/talking-to-my-okf-brain-1782485041776-905x1024-803-384x434.jpg 384w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/talking-to-my-okf-brain-1782485041776-905x1024-803-425x481.jpg 425w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/talking-to-my-okf-brain-1782485041776-905x1024-803-480x543.jpg 480w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/talking-to-my-okf-brain-1782485041776-905x1024-803-680x769.jpg 680w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/talking-to-my-okf-brain-1782485041776-905x1024-803-768x869.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/talking-to-my-okf-brain-1782485041776-905x1024-803-850x962.jpg 850w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/talking-to-my-okf-brain-1782485041776-905x1024-803.jpg 905w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 905px) 100vw, 905px\" loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Build An OKF Brain Like Mine! via @sejournal, @marie_haynes\u63d2\u56fe4\" alt=\"Build An OKF Brain Like Mine! via @sejournal, @marie_haynes\u63d2\u56fe4\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image Credit: Marie Haynes<\/figcaption><\/figure> <figure id=\"attachment_580680\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 983px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/okf-brain-updated-1782485107498-340.png\"  width=\"983\" height=\"388\" class=\"size-full wp-image-580680\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/okf-brain-updated-1782485107498-340-384x152.png 384w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/okf-brain-updated-1782485107498-340-425x168.png 425w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/okf-brain-updated-1782485107498-340-480x189.png 480w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/okf-brain-updated-1782485107498-340-680x268.png 680w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/okf-brain-updated-1782485107498-340-768x303.png 768w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/okf-brain-updated-1782485107498-340-850x336.png 850w, https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/okf-brain-updated-1782485107498-340.png 983w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 983px) 100vw, 983px\" loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Build An OKF Brain Like Mine! via @sejournal, @marie_haynes\u63d2\u56fe5\" alt=\"Build An OKF Brain Like Mine! via @sejournal, @marie_haynes\u63d2\u56fe5\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image Credit: Marie Haynes<\/figcaption><\/figure> <h2>Building Playbooks To Save Days Of Work<\/h2> <p>One of the most exciting things I\u2019ve built in my OKF brain is a set of playbooks. For example, I have a playbook for generating client proposals. Usually, this is a tedious process that takes a lot of manual work. Now, my agent (Antigravity) follows the steps laid out in my proposal playbook to draft everything using my specific voice and logic.<\/p> <p>I also built a playbook for analyzing site impact after a Google update. I created a procedural checkpoint for my agent to follow when analyzing these shifts. What used to take me two days to analyze now takes a matter of hours, and the report produced is something I\u2019m incredibly happy with. This is the power of documenting your wisdom in a way that agents can actually execute.<\/p> <p>I really encourage you to start experimenting with this. You don\u2019t need to be a coder to start. You can tell an agent to help you build your first OKF bundle based on the documentation Google has provided. It\u2019s making me more productive, and I think it\u2019s the key to staying relevant as Search continues to evolve.<\/p> <p>To build something similar, give these links to your agent (Claude Code \/ Cowork, ChatGPT Codex, or my favorite, Google\u2019s Antigravity) and try this prompt:<\/p> <pre><em>\"I want to build an OKF system similar to Marie's. Read these links and then give me some ideas of what this would look like. Then, ask me questions one at a time so that together, we can decide what we want to build: <\/em>&#13; &#13; <em>https:\/\/cloud.google.com\/blog\/products\/data-analytics\/how-the-open-knowledge-format-can-improve-data-sharing\/<\/em>&#13; &#13; <em> <\/em>&#13; &#13; <em> <\/em>&#13; &#13; <em> <\/em><\/pre> <p><strong>More Resources:<\/strong><\/p> <hr\/> <p><em>Read Marie\u2019s newsletter, AI News You Can Use. Subscribe now.<\/em><\/p> <hr\/> <p><em>Featured Image: N Universe\/Shutterstock<\/em><\/p> <\/div> <p>Generative AI,SEO,Technical SEO#Build #OKF #Brain #sejournal #marie_haynes1783345188<\/p> ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My last piece on Google\u2019s Open Knowledge Format (OKF) was one of the most popular I\u2019ve ever published. Since then, I have been heads down working on my own OKF structure. I\u2019ve essentially built my own personal brain, and today, I want to show you how it works and why this standard is so incredibly [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11082,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[8762,8296,5015,44220,80],"class_list":["post-11081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-accessibility","tag-brain","tag-build","tag-marie_haynes","tag-okf","tag-sejournal"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}