What is 1688-distribution-knowledge-newton?

This Python project is a query tool for 1688's distribution knowledge base. 1688 is Alibaba's wholesale marketplace used by Chinese sellers to source and distribute products. The knowledge base holds documentation about shipping workflows, product listing procedures, order management, and other operational guides that sellers and distributors need to run their businesses on the platform. The tool lets you search that documentation programmatically, and optionally filter results by sales channel (such as Taobao, Douyin, Pinduoduo, Xiaohongshu, or JD) or by third-party distribution software (21 channels and 24 tools are listed in the README). You call a function, pass a query string and optionally a channel and tool name, and get back a ranked list of matching document chunks with relevance scores. Authentication uses an API key obtained from the 1688 developer platform. The underlying HTTP client handles HMAC-SHA256 request signing, automatic retries on failure, and response parsing automatically, so business code does not need to deal with those details directly. The project is structured so that the signing and HTTP logic is in shared files that should not be modified, while the business logic in the scripts/biz/ directory is where customization goes. The repository is designed to be used as an AI agent skill. A SKILL.md file describes the capability to the agent, and the business code in knowledge_query.py handles the actual API call. The README is written in Chinese, which reflects the tool's intended audience of Chinese-market sellers and developers working with 1688's ecosystem.