Recursive Boil-Down Protocol Agent Skill

Decompose a system, repository, or architecture into four tiers — Macro (whole system), Bricks (components), Elements (conceptual…

Context cost
1.5k tokensestimated from the bundle, loaded when it triggers
Bundle
1 file · 6.1 kBtext throughout, nothing executable
Licence
MITthe author’s own terms
Last change
—no release on file
Servers it uses
Noneruns standalone

What it does

Decompose a system, repository, or architecture into four tiers — Macro (whole system), Bricks (components), Elements (conceptual primitives), Primitives (base operations) — reading target source plus its seed.yaml, then output a comparison table of the new system against existing substrates to expose reuse and overlap before anything new is built. Triggers on "boil down", "decompose into primitives", "recursive boil-down", or analyzing a new repo/architecture against what already exists.

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.

architecturedecompositionontologyprimitivesproductivityreusesubstrate-analysis

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.md6.1 kB · preview
--- name: recursive-boil-down license: MIT complexity: intermediate time_to_learn: 30min tags: - architecture - decomposition - primitives - substrate-analysis - reuse - ontology governance_phases: [frame, shape] organ_affinity: [organ-i, organ-iv] inputs: - target source tree (repo or subsystem) - target seed.yaml (read-only; if absent, that absence is a finding) - inventory of existing substrates to compare against (registry, sibling repos) outputs: - four-tier decomposition document - substrate comparison table (new vs existing, per tier) - reuse verdict (build / extend / absorb) side_effects: - reads-filesystem - creates-files triggers: [user-asks-to-decompose-system, context:boil-down, context:primitives-analysis, context:new-repo-audit] complements: [knowledge-architecture, modular-synthesis-philosophy, domain-ideal-whole-substrate, ecosystem-autopsy] ---
31# Recursive Boil-Down Protocol
32
33Strip a system down to what it *is made of*, tier by tier, until it can be compared honestly against everything that already exists — so the verdict "build new" is earned rather than assumed.
34
35## Why this exists
36
37Delegated agents reinvent existing tools because they meet a system at its surface (the Macro tier) where everything looks unique. Two systems that look unrelated at the surface usually share most of their Elements and nearly all of their Primitives. Decomposing before building converts "this is new" into a precise statement of *which tier* is actually new — and routes everything below that tier to reuse.
38
39## The four tiers
40
41| Tier | Question | Granularity | Example (a prompt-registry system) |
42|------|----------|-------------|-----------------------------------|
43| **Macro** | What is the whole thing for? | 1 system | "durable registry of every prompt issued across sessions" |
44| **Bricks** | What components compose it? | 3–12 components | capture hook, session parser, index generator, archive store |
45| **Elements** | What concepts do the bricks manipulate? | 5–20 concepts | session, prompt-atom, capture-event, index-entry, archive-path |
46| **Primitives** | What base operations recur beneath the concepts? | small closed set | append-only write, content-hash dedupe, frontmatter parse, glob-walk, ID-mint |
47
48Decomposition is **recursive**: any Brick too large to state in one sentence gets its own four-tier pass.
49
This is a preview of SKILL.md. Download or install the skill to get the whole thing.
In the file
SKILL.md891 words
Files1
LicenceMIT
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.

≈350
always loaded
The name and description, so the model knows the skill exists and when to reach for it.
1,175
on trigger
The instruction body, read only when the skill fires.
0.76%
of a 200k window
Ten skills this size would take about 8% of the window before you open a file.
050k100k150k200k context window

1.5k 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

1 file, 6.1 kB on disk. A bundle is text throughout: the instructions the model reads, plus the templates it fills in.

  • SKILL.md6.1 kB
What is not in it

No dependencies and nothing executable: a skill is text the agent reads, so the bundle is 1 file you can review in full before installing. The MIT 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.

# Recursive Boil-Down Protocol · 1.5k tokens when loaded · macOS, Linux mkdir -p .claude/skills && t=$(mktemp -d) && curl -fsSL -o "$t/bundle.tar.gz" https://mcprush.com/api/skills/recursive-boil-down-protocol/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/recursive-boil-down-protocol" ] && { [ ! -e .claude/skills/recursive-boil-down-protocol ] || { mv .claude/skills/recursive-boil-down-protocol "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/recursive-boil-down-protocol" .claude/skills/ && echo "Installed .claude/skills/recursive-boil-down-protocol"
On Windows, or any OS with Node 20+
npx mcprush@latest skill add organvm-iv-taxis/recursive-boil-down-protocol

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/recursive-boil-down-protocol/ 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/recursive-boil-down-protocol/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/recursive-boil-down-protocol" ] && { [ ! -e ~/.claude/skills/recursive-boil-down-protocol ] || { mv ~/.claude/skills/recursive-boil-down-protocol "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/recursive-boil-down-protocol" ~/.claude/skills/ && echo "Installed ~/.claude/skills/recursive-boil-down-protocol" (macOS, Linux) — or add --global to the npx line. The curl line replaces .claude/skills/recursive-boil-down-protocol/ 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. It appears as recursive-boil-down in Gemini CLI, Codex, Copilot and Grok (its own name); Claude Code lists it by the folder name, recursive-boil-down-protocol.

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
Referenceorganvm-iv-taxis/recursive-boil-down-protocol

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.

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