Declined ideas
Audience: maintainers and contributors about to re-propose something. Check this file before filing an issue — we may have already considered and rejected your idea, and the reason is here.
The project has a scope. Not every cool idea fits. This file is the graveyard where declined ideas rest, with a date and a one-sentence rationale. If you disagree with a decline, open a new issue and link to the entry — explain what's changed since the rejection.
Format
## <Date> — <Title>
**Reason:** one-sentence rationale.
**Context (optional):** link to the issue, PR, or discussion. Any
nuance about *when* this might be reconsidered.
2026-04-09 — N-way comparisons on vs-comparison pages
Reason: 2-way side-by-side comparisons (#58) are a clean, queryable format. N-way comparisons degenerate into an info table with N columns, which loses the "at-a-glance diff" that makes the 2-way format useful. Users who want N-way can run N-choose-2 pair navigation from the index.
Context: #58 non-goal. Reconsider if a genuine user request demands it.
2026-04-09 — Automatic benchmark scraping from provider websites
Reason: Scraping is fragile, violates most providers' ToS, and creates a hidden data pipeline that can silently break. Users add benchmarks manually for v1. Structured community contributions are welcome via PR.
Context: #55 non-goal. Reconsider if a provider ships an official machine-readable benchmark API.
2026-04-09 — USD cost estimates in token usage cards
Reason: Requires a pricing table that's correct at the moment of rendering, which means either an external API call (bad — kills offline mode) or a stale hardcoded table (bad — wrong numbers are worse than no numbers). Will revisit after the v0.7 structured model schema (#55) landed, so cost can be computed from the same pricing block users already maintain.
Context: #66 non-goal. #55 shipped; revisit in v0.10.
2026-04-09 — Rollback for append-only changelog entries
Reason: Append-only by design. If an entry is wrong, add a correcting entry rather than deleting the original — preserves the audit trail. Same rule as the wiki log.
Context: #56 non-goal.
2026-04-09 — Per-turn tool timelines
Reason: Would need turn-level structured data in every session frontmatter (beyond the per-session aggregates in #63), which is a 5× larger converter output and bloats the search index. The per-session bar chart from #65 covers the 90% use case.
Context: #65 non-goal. Reconsider if users start asking for it.
2026-04-09 — Success/failure counts per tool
Reason: The raw JSONL has toolUseResult.isError on every tool
result block, but wiring it through the converter aggregates
doubles the state-machine complexity. Defer until users ask.
Context: #65 non-goal.
2026-04-09 — Replicating qmd's hybrid search inside llmwiki
Reason: qmd already does hybrid BM25 + vector + LLM rerank.
llmwiki's built-in search is a deliberate "works offline, zero
deps, client-side fuzzy" design. Users who need hybrid search run
llmwiki export-qmd and point qmd at the output. Two tools, one
source of truth, no competing stacks.
Context: #59 non-goal. Reconsider only if qmd becomes unmaintained.
2026-04-09 — Shipping qmd as a dependency
Reason: qmd is TypeScript/Node. llmwiki is stdlib Python plus
markdown. Adding a Node runtime as a dep would destroy the
"works on any 3.9+ Python, no other dependencies" promise.
Context: #59 non-goal.
2026-04-09 — Forcing users to create _context.md files
Reason: Folder-level context files are an optional navigation
hint. Making them mandatory turns them into busywork for sparse
folders and obscures their value for large ones. The /wiki-lint
warning (#60) nags at >10-file folders without a stub, which is
enough social pressure without blocking a build.
Context: #60 non-goal.
2026-04-09 — Auto-generating _context.md via LLM on sync
Reason: The whole point of _context.md is a human (or LLM
during /wiki-query) having a stable, reviewable description of
the folder's purpose. Auto-generating it on sync would make the
file drift every time the converter runs, which defeats the
caching benefit. A separate /wiki-write-contexts slash command
that takes user approval is acceptable — just not in the sync
pipeline.
Context: #60 follow-up, not a non-goal.
2026-04-09 — SEO schema.org markup on vs-comparison pages
Reason: Every session and model page already ships Article
microdata (v0.4). Vs-comparison pages are aggregations, not
articles — schema.org doesn't have a clean "comparison" type.
Adding half-correct schema is worse than no schema.
Context: #58 non-goal. Follow up if Google adds a comparison type.
2026-04-09 — CLAs or DCO sign-off for contributions
Reason: llmwiki is MIT. The added bureaucracy deters small PRs and buys nothing the license doesn't already cover.
Context: #62 non-goal.
2026-04-09 — Enforcing governance retroactively on old issues
Reason: Issues #1–#61 were filed before the governance scaffold existed. Re-triaging them would churn for no user benefit. New rules apply to new issues.
Context: #62 non-goal.
2026-04-09 — Bots for automated triage
Reason: Manual triage via /triage-issue <number> is enough
for the current queue size (<60 open issues). Automated bots
create labeling noise and false positives. Revisit if the queue
grows past 300.
Context: #62 non-goal.
Want to propose something that's on this list? File an issue with a link to the entry and explain what's changed since the rejection. Maintainers read proposals with an open mind, but "the idea is cool" isn't a new argument.