Recognition Over Recall Agent Skill

Use this skill whenever the user must locate or choose something from many possibilities — pickers, command palettes, navigation menus…

Context cost
3.6k tokensestimated from the bundle, loaded when it triggers
Bundle
2 files · 14.5 kBtext throughout, nothing executable
Licence
Apache-2.0the author’s own terms
Last change
—no release on file
Servers it uses
Noneruns standalone

What it does

Use this skill whenever the user must locate or choose something from many possibilities — pickers, command palettes, navigation menus, autocompletes, recents lists, search results, settings panels. Trigger when designing inputs that ask the user to "type the right thing," when picking between dropdowns and search-first interfaces, when reviewing why users keep typing wrong values into autocomplete fields.

What this skill changes about the agent has not been set out here as a list. Its SKILL.md, shown below, says it in the author’s own words.

design
Filed under

Design & Media

The skill itself

A skill is instructions the model reads, so you can see what you are getting: below is the start of its SKILL.md. The front matter loads with every session, the body loads when the skill triggers, and the whole file comes with the install.

SKILL.md12.2 kB · preview
--- name: recognition-over-recall ---
6# Recognition Over Recall
7
8People are dramatically better at recognizing things they've previously seen than at recalling them from memory. A multiple-choice question is easier than a fill-in-the-blank because the options are visible — the user only has to recognize the right one rather than retrieve it. The same principle holds across UI design: showing options beats asking the user to type from memory; using familiar conventions beats requiring the user to recall arbitrary commands.
9
10## Definition (in our own words)
11
12Recognition memory and recall memory work differently in human cognition. Recognition is fast, relatively effortless, and survives long after the original exposure. Recall requires active retrieval — searching through memory for the right item — and is slower, more error-prone, and degrades faster over time. Designs that show options for the user to recognize from outperform designs that ask the user to recall and type. The classic case in UI design: the shift from command-line interfaces (recall: "what was that command?") to graphical menus (recognition: "I see what I want; click it") dramatically expanded who could use computers.
13
14## Origins and research lineage
15
16- **Cognitive psychology** has demonstrated the recognition-over-recall asymmetry across decades of memory research. Recognition tasks (multiple choice) consistently outperform recall tasks (fill-in-the-blank) for the same content.
17- **The Xerox Star user interface** (1981) is the seminal applied work. The Star's designers leveraged recognition over recall throughout: menus showed available options instead of requiring command memorization. Documented in Johnson, Roberts, et al. (1995), "The Xerox 'Star': A Retrospective," in *Human Computer Interaction: Toward the Year 2000*.
18- **Lidwell, Holden & Butler** (2003) compactly stated the principle and noted recognition-driven decision-making — users often select familiar options over potentially-better unfamiliar ones (the "consumer brand familiarity" effect).
19- **Jakob Nielsen** included "Recognition rather than recall" as one of his 10 usability heuristics (1994 onward).
20- **Hoyer & Brown (1990)**, "Effects of Brand Awareness on Choice for a Common, Repeat-Purchase Product." *Journal of Consumer Research*. Showed that brand familiarity influences purchase choices independent of objective product quality — a recognition effect in the marketplace.
21
22## Why recognition matters
23
24Working memory is small (~4 items). Long-term memory is vast but accessed primarily through cues. Recognition tasks provide the cue (the option is visible); recall tasks ask the brain to generate the cue from scratch.
This is a preview of SKILL.md. Download or install the skill to get the whole thing.
In the file
SKILL.md1,683 words
Files2
LicenceApache-2.0
Why you can read it

Nothing in a skill executes. The client loads the text and the model follows it, so a skill can be audited the way a runbook is — by reading it.

What it costs in context

Skills are not billed by the call. They are paid for in context: every token the instructions occupy is a token your code, your diff and your conversation cannot use. Here is what this one takes and when it takes it.

≈170
always loaded
The name and description, so the model knows the skill exists and when to reach for it.
3,455
on trigger
The instruction body and 1 supporting file, read only when the skill fires.
1.8%
of a 200k window
Ten skills this size would take about 18% of the window before you open a file.
050k100k150k200k context window

3.6k tokens, estimated from the bundle at four bytes to the token, held for the rest of the session once it triggers. Middling. Fine to keep on in a project where you use it weekly, worth unloading in one where you never do.

Servers bill, skills cost

A server charges by the month. A skill charges once per session, in context, and then keeps charging it for as long as the session lives.

Before and after

The same question, put to the same model twice: once as it comes, and once with these instructions loaded.

No worked example has been published for this skill yet.

The procedure it runs

The procedure has not been set out here step by step. It is in the body of its SKILL.md: the start of it is shown above, and the whole file comes with the install.

Prose, not code

These steps are written for a model to follow, not executed by a runtime. It can still be told to skip one, and it will say so when it does.

Servers it uses

None. This skill calls no MCP servers at all.

Everything it needs is in the instructions, so it works in a project with nothing connected — the model reads the file and changes how it works with what it can already reach.

Its SKILL.md does not declare which tools it asks the agent for, so what it touches is whatever the instructions themselves ask for — read them before you install it.

What it asks for
Writes filesnot declared
Network accessnot declared

This SKILL.md carries no allowed-tools line, so neither is declared. A skill grants no permissions of its own — it can only ask for tools your client already has.

What it will not do

Every skill is narrow, and the useful ones say where they stop. These are the jobs this one is the wrong tool for.

What this skill is not for has not been published here. Nothing is implied by that: it is a section the author has not filled in.

What is in the bundle

2 files, 14.5 kB on disk. A bundle is text throughout: the instructions the model reads, plus the templates it fills in.

  • SKILL.md12.2 kB
  • references/research-and-cases.md2.3 kB
What is not in it

No dependencies and nothing executable: a skill is text the agent reads, so the bundle is 2 files you can review in full before installing. The Apache-2.0 licence covers the templates and examples as well as the instructions.

Install

Installing copies the bundle into your project. Nothing runs at install time — the files sit on disk until the model reads them.

# Recognition Over Recall · 3.6k tokens when loaded · macOS, Linux mkdir -p .claude/skills && t=$(mktemp -d) && curl -fsSL -o "$t/bundle.tar.gz" https://mcprush.com/api/skills/recognition-over-recall/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/recognition-over-recall" ] && { [ ! -e .claude/skills/recognition-over-recall ] || { mv .claude/skills/recognition-over-recall "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/recognition-over-recall" .claude/skills/ && echo "Installed .claude/skills/recognition-over-recall"
On Windows, or any OS with Node 20+
npx mcprush@latest skill add hashgraph-online/recognition-over-recall

Windows PowerShell says 'running scripts is disabled on this system'? Run Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope CurrentUser RemoteSigned once, or type npx.cmd instead of npx (codex.cmd, gemini.cmd, grok.cmd likewise). PowerShell 7 needs neither. Writes to .claude/skills/recognition-over-recall/ in the current project. For every project instead, run mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && t=$(mktemp -d) && curl -fsSL -o "$t/bundle.tar.gz" https://mcprush.com/api/skills/recognition-over-recall/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/recognition-over-recall" ] && { [ ! -e ~/.claude/skills/recognition-over-recall ] || { mv ~/.claude/skills/recognition-over-recall "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/recognition-over-recall" ~/.claude/skills/ && echo "Installed ~/.claude/skills/recognition-over-recall" (macOS, Linux) — or add --global to the npx line. The curl line replaces .claude/skills/recognition-over-recall/ only after the download succeeds, so files left there by another skill of the same name, or by an older release, do not mix in. A copy already there is moved aside, not deleted, and the line prints where.

Which clients pick it up on their own

A skill is a folder of text. Most of these read a skills folder and pick it up without being told; the rest take the same folder another way — an upload in the app, a parameter on an API call — and then choose it by its description just the same.

Claude Code.claude/skills/
Claude DesktopCustomize › Skills
ChatGPTSkills › Create › Upload
Cursor.cursor/skills/
VS Code.github/skills/
Codex CLI.agents/skills/
Gemini CLI.gemini/skills/
Grok Build.grok/skills/
Microsoft CopilotSkills › Upload a skill
PerplexityComputer › Skills › Upload a skill
DeepSeek Harness.dsh/skills/
Zed.agents/skills/
Devin Desktop.devin/skills/
Windsurf (legacy).windsurf/skills/
OpenAI Agents SDKInstructions or sandbox Skills
HTTP / APIa request parameter
This release
Versionnot versioned
Publishedno release date on file
PriceFree
Referencehashgraph-online/recognition-over-recall

Versions

Its author publishes no version number, so there is nothing here to pin to: what you install is the folder as it stands today. Instructions change more often than APIs do — a skill can be rewritten entirely without anything it depends on moving.

Pinning

Nothing to pin to: this skill carries no version number of its own. What you install is what the folder holds on the day you install it.

Reviews

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Publisher
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