Exploring a Module's API Surface

Wikantik has ~20 Maven modules. Most of them have a small, focused public API and a long tail of internal helpers. The trick to fast orientation is reading the public-API surface first.

When to use this runbook

Before non-trivial work in an unfamiliar module. Five minutes here saves an hour of search-and-grep later.

Context

The module structure documented in CLAUDE.md (the "Module Structure" section) is the high-level map. Each module is one Maven artifact; inter-module dependencies follow strict layering (api ← main ← rest / knowledge / admin-mcp / etc.).

Walkthrough

The frontmatter steps are the canonical procedure. POMs first (dependency map), then public interfaces, then lifecycle hooks. README and package-info give intent; the wiki's narrative articles fill in the rest.

Pitfalls

The frontmatter pitfalls are the recurring time-wasters. The "reading the whole module" antipattern is especially expensive on wikantik-main, which is over a hundred classes — most of them internal.