Add recipe

Save a complete recipe to the personal Obsidian vault by calling the brain-mcp add_recipe tool. The tool takes title: string and body: string, writes verbatim to vault/Recipes/<title>.md, and refuses to overwrite an existing recipe with the same title.

The tool only writes the file. The skill is responsible for composing a body that already matches the shape below — frontmatter, sections, units, voice. There is no second pass.

Scope

Use this skill only when:

• A complete recipe has been developed in the current conversation (ingredients with quantities, method, serves, time).
• The user explicitly asks to save it: "save this recipe", "save this recipe to brain", "add this recipe to brain", "save recipe to brain", or close variants.

Do NOT use this skill for:

• Partial drafts where ingredients, method, serves, or time are missing — stop and ask for the missing pieces before saving.
• Saving a link to an external recipe — the vault wants the full text, not a pointer.
• Anything that isn't recipe-shaped — redirect to capture if it's a thought about food rather than a recipe.

Recipe shape

The vault's recipe convention is anchored on Recipes/Lemon, Greens & Sausage Pasta.md. New recipes match this shape exactly.

Frontmatter

Closed sets — if a recipe doesn't fit, stop and ask the user rather than inventing a value.

---
type: batch-lunch | family-meal
source: <Claude conversation | URL | person | cookbook>
health: light | balanced | indulgent
---

• type — closed set, exactly two values. If the recipe is plainly neither (a snack, a drink, a dessert that fits neither category), stop and ask the user. Adding a third value is a deliberate edit to this skill, not an on-the-fly choice.
• source — fill in when obvious. The conversation usually makes this clear: Claude conversation if the recipe was developed in chat, a URL if cited, a person's name if attributed (from Cheryl), a cookbook name if quoted. Prompt the user when ambiguous.
• health — closed set, three values. light = vegetable-led, lean protein, minimal added fat or sugar. balanced = standard cooked meal, nothing extreme. indulgent = butter, cream, frying, sugar, or refined carbs as a primary feature. Stop and ask if you can't confidently pick.

Body

Mirror the existing recipe layout precisely:

**Serves:** 4  
**Time:** ~25 minutes  

---

## Ingredients

- 300g pasta
- 6 sausages
- ...

---

## Method

### 1. Cook the pasta
- Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil
- ...

---

### 2. Cook the sausage
- ...

---

## Reheating

- Microwave from chilled: 2–3 minutes, stir halfway
- ...

• Inline header: **Serves:** N and **Time:** ~X (two-space hard breaks at end of line), followed by a --- divider before ## Ingredients.
• ## Ingredients — flat bullet list. Sub-group with ### Component headings only if the recipe genuinely has distinct components (e.g. sauce + base + topping).
• ## Method — numbered ### N. Step name subsections, each a short bullet list. --- divider between steps.
• ## Reheating — included only when type: batch-lunch. Omitted entirely for family-meal.
• Trailing sections (## Tips, ## Notes on …) — include only when there is genuine content. Don't pad.

Content rules

These are non-negotiable:

• Metric only — grams, ml, °C. No ounces, no Fahrenheit.
• No cups — convert to grams (dry) or ml (liquid).
• No decimals from conversion — round to whole numbers. 1 cup flour → 125g, not 124.5g. 1 tsp and 1 tbsp are fine; they're already metric-friendly.
• British English — courgette (not zucchini), coriander (not cilantro), aubergine (not eggplant), prawns (not shrimp), rocket (not arugula).
• Light imperative cookbook voice — "Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil", not "You'll want to start by bringing a pan of water…". Don't mimic the user's conversational phrasing.
• Two-space hard breaks at end-of-line within bullet lists — match the existing recipe's spacing.

Title

• Title Case With Spaces, punctuation fine. Lemon, Greens & Sausage Pasta is the anchor.
• Used verbatim as the filename — the tool preserves case, spaces, and punctuation (it strips only \, /, and null bytes).
• Derive a concise title that names the dish. Avoid generic prefixes (Quick & Easy …, The Best …).

Process

1. Check completeness. Confirm the conversation contains: ingredients with quantities, method, serves, time. If anything is missing, stop and ask.
2. Pick the type. batch-lunch or family-meal. If neither fits, stop and ask.
3. Pick the health grade. light / balanced / indulgent. If unsure, stop and ask.
4. Resolve the source. If obvious from the conversation, fill it in. If not, ask in one line: "Source for this recipe?"
5. Compose the body. Frontmatter, header, ## Ingredients, ## Method, ## Reheating (batch-lunch only), optional trailing sections. Apply the content rules — metric, no cups, whole numbers, British English, cookbook voice.
6. Derive the title. Title Case, names the dish.
7. Call add_recipe(title, body).
8. Confirm to the user in one line, echoing the tool's reply (e.g. Saved — Recipes/Lemon, Greens & Sausage Pasta.md).

When to stop and ask

• The recipe is incomplete (missing ingredients, method, serves, or time).
• The recipe is plainly neither batch-lunch nor family-meal.
• You can't confidently pick a health grade.
• The source is ambiguous and not derivable from the conversation.
• The tool returns an overwrite error — surface it; do not invent a new title to dodge the conflict, ask the user how they want to proceed.
• The brain-mcp tool is unavailable or returns an error — surface plainly; do not fall back to writing the file via another mechanism.

Anti-patterns

• Inventing frontmatter fields the shape doesn't define (tags, dietary flags, date added, prep/cook split, cuisine, calories).
• Adding a new type or health value because the recipe "doesn't quite fit".
• Mimicking the user's personal phrasing — voice is light cookbook imperative, regardless of how the conversation read.
• Including imperial units alongside metric "for convenience".
• Quoting decimal conversions (124.5g) — round.
• Including a ## Reheating section for a family-meal, or omitting it for a batch-lunch.
• Padding with empty ## Tips / ## Notes sections — omit when there's nothing to say.
• Trying a different title to bypass an overwrite error — surface and ask.
• Using the GitHub connector or any file tool other than add_recipe.