Production Open Source Chat with Work Instructions

General
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The purpose of this post is to support discussion for the ‘Production Open Source Chat with Work Instructions’ blog post.

Let me know if you have comments, questions or concerns.

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Looks like a good starting point, but since I’m already familiar I’m not qualified to speak to how well it would onboard a new user.

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As an overview I understood what the aim was and it looks really good. Look forward to working on this more with Adam.

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Hi Chuck

There is a challenge to make a transition from google doc or nextcloud instructions that are written in a common way to a set of instructions that are written in a markdown text with a well established structure and wording (without the structure and proper wording - as our humble tests show - AI will mix in his answers instructions for Sales orders together with Purchase orders.)

Is there any easy pass from word or google doc instructions written for ppl to markdown text instructions meant both for ppl and AI? Or we need to rewrite them completely (changing pictures that we loved to use to links in markdown docs, along the way)?

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This is a pretty great question! Here are my thoughts:

  • Google docs, for example, has an export to markdown feature. In the short term, we should be able to use this to export and feed the AI engine on a periodic basis. If/when we prove how we want to move forward, we can perform one final export.
  • Obsidian is every bit as good of an editor as word or google docs IMHO. It is actually better in many ways.
  • Obsidian has several AI plugins that solve different needs. You can use AI and Obsidian to create new instructions from templates for example.
  • I am not sure about Word’s ability to export to markdown.
  • See the below work instructions as code

Work instructions will become more and more important as we start to augment and automate them. They will effectively become code. The change/approval workflow in word and google documents is not acceptable when you start to think about work instructions as code. You have two competing demands:

  1. You need everyone to help improve your work instruction.
  2. You need control over when and how changes are made.

Using markdown (instead of word or google docs) gives you all the power of git (change/version control workflow) with ability to get everyone involved.

It is also important to note that you have approximately two roles that make changes to work instructions:

  1. The power users who originate new work instructions and primarily maintain existing ones.
  2. The normal user who might make changes, suggestions, comments on existing work instructions for the purpose of continuous improvement.

You want to satisfy the power users first.

Does this speak to your points?
Chuck

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