Categorizing the wiki

Structure knowledge by team and topic so people can browse, not just search.

When to use

Set up categories and tags when the wiki grows beyond a few dozen articles, or before you turn on the public portal, because the portal only shows articles in categories marked public.

Before you start

  • Categories need kb:write; the tags page needs kb:read.
  • Data scope (own / team / all articles) is set by someone with knowledge:admin.
  • knowledge.public_access_allowed (default: on) controls whether the public portal is allowed at all.

Steps

  1. Open /knowledge/settings/categories.

  2. Create categories per team or domain.

  3. For categories whose articles may be shown to customers, mark the category as public. Leave internal ones unmarked.

  4. Manage tags at /knowledge/settings/tags so naming stays consistent.

  5. To limit who sees whose articles, open /knowledge/settings/access and choose the data scope (own, team or all). This needs knowledge:admin.

Team Knowledge Base — category settings with the public category marker
Team Knowledge Base — category settings with the public category marker

Tips & common mistakes

  • An article is only public when it is published, marked Public and in a public category; fixing only one of these will not expose it.
  • Do not create one category per article; keep the tree shallow enough to browse.
  • Merge near-duplicate tags instead of adding variants.
  • Data scope limits articles by author; check it if someone cannot see colleagues’ drafts.