Ingredients Studio¶

The AI skills behind the ingredient work on this site: one router, ingredient-studio, in front of a set of specialists. The router holds no chemistry. It checks each request against the ingredient registry, proposes who should do the work and in which mode, waits for approval, then runs the specialists and combines what they return. Each specialist has its own guide (listed at the bottom of this page) for the detail.

Download the router · v2.2 · CC0 · specialists: Maillard v8.1, Treatments v1.2, Sensory v1. Installing them is covered at the end of this page. Specialists also run on their own, without the router.

How it fits together¶

Three layers: you, the router, and the specialists. The router decides and records; specialists do the work; nothing writes to a shared file except you.

flowchart LR
    U(["You"]) -- "request" --> R["ingredient-studio<br/>router"]
    RD[("registry<br/>specialist register<br/>batch log")] -.-> R
    R -- "preflight, proposal" --> U
    R -- "specialist(s) request" --> S["Specialist(s)"]
    SD[("own catalogue,<br/>references, setup,<br/>calculator")] -.-> S
    S -- "results, blocks" --> R
    R -- "combined answer,<br/>blocks to paste" --> U

The registry holds facts about an ingredient; each specialist owns the verdict on its own process. The router never overrides a verdict.

Specialists come in two kinds. Process specialists (Maillard, Treatments) own preparations: they design, judge their own processes and write batch-log blocks. The advisory specialist (Sensory) owns knowledge: what an ingredient brings to a living beer, its precedent and its pairings. It frames the work, carries hazards to their owners, and never sets a batch dose or writes a batch-log block.

Two ways to call it¶

Free-form: the router proposes, you approve¶

Start with /ingredient-studio and say what you want in your own words:

/ingredient-studio I've got 2 kg of quince, what are my options?

The router runs its checks, then replies with a preflight and a routing proposal, and stops:

Preflight
- Ingredients: quince (quince)
- Hazards: quince: patulin [handle]; seeds, amygdalin [note]
- House: quince = shortlist
- Specialists: maillard v8.1, treatments v1.2, sensory v1
- Design number: 006 (if a design is written)
- Blockers: none

Proposed route: R3 Explore
1. sensory:1 (Scope): quince                                   → forms, partners, owners
2. treatments:1 (Options): quince, 2 kg, on that shortlist     → 2-4 directions
3. maillard:1 (Ingredients-first, directions only): quince     → 2-4 directions
4. Router combines and recommends; the owner builds your choice as design 006
Proceed? go / amend

Reply go, or amend it: change the route, drop or add a specialist, change a mode, add inputs. Nothing is designed, calculated or written until you approve.

Directed: you choose, the router checks and runs¶

Name the specialist and mode, or the route. The router runs the same checks, shows the preflight, and proceeds without proposing a routing choice.

A directed request still stops on a blocker, and asks, without suggesting another route:

• an ambiguous ingredient name (marigold, elder, laurel, cherry);
• a registry hazard that excludes the material asked for (rhubarb leaves);
• an unregistered ingredient going into a design, critique or log;
• a batch log without the beer's volume.

Calling a specialist directly (/fruit-maillard-prep, /ingredient-treatments, /ingredient-sensory) skips the router and its checks; the specialist then works standalone.

What the router checks, every time¶

1. Which ingredient. Names and aliases are matched to registry IDs; ambiguous names are resolved before anything else.
2. What is intrinsically risky. Registry hazards, including those of parts (the stones inside whole fruit). Excluded parts stop there.
3. House preferences. First picks win when two ingredients serve equally; it never asks what is in stock.
4. Which specialists are available, and their versions.
5. The design number, when a design will be written: design NNN is WB-ING-YYYY-NNN.
6. Batch context: which batch the work belongs to and whether the beer volume is known.

Facts are shared, verdicts are owned. The registry says what a hazard is and how it behaves under heat, drying, freezing, alcohol or fermentation. Each specialist decides whether its own process is safe with it. The router never overrides a specialist's verdict; it adds only what no single specialist can see: totals across preparations in the same beer, allergens, interactions.

Routes¶

Routes pick specialists by the roles their modes carry, so a new specialist joins a route as soon as it is registered.

Specialists and modes¶

The two tables below are generated from the specialist register. Use the short name and mode number as a directive: maillard:5, treatments:2. Modes are grouped by specialist.

Generated from ingredient-studio/data/specialists.yaml by specialists_check.py --render-guide. Edit the register, not this table.

Specialists¶

Modes¶

Files the router keeps¶

Typical flows¶

• New ingredient: sensory:1 <ingredient> to narrow the forms and partners → R2 <ingredient> on the brief → the analysis page in designs/analysis/ → paste the registry entry and catalogue rows → studio:check → "send to the wiki".
• New preparation: free-form request → approve the R3 proposal → pick a direction → design → maillard:6 or treatments:5 for the log block → cook or treat → debrief at 6 and 18 months.
• Two preparations in one beer: design each, then R5 to log them as one batch so the totals are summed.
• Hand a design to the wiki: "send to the wiki" → wiki-intake → wiki-publish.

Choosing the model¶

Adding or updating a specialist¶

Every specialist meets the contract in ingredient-studio/references/specialist-contract.md: a kind (process or advisory), numbered modes with the roles its kind requires, a catalogue keyed by registry ID with hazard verdicts (carried, for an advisory specialist), a log block the router can sum (process specialists), a section of the ingredient analysis page, standalone use, and a guide page here. The steps for adding, updating or retiring one are in ingredient-studio/references/specialist-lifecycle.md; how the guides and downloads here are kept in step is this site's own maintenance process, not part of the download.

Versions¶

Guides¶

Installing the skills¶

For anyone downloading them. Brief by design: if something here is unclear, hand this section and the zips to your own AI.

1. Download the router and the specialists you want (links at the top). Each zip is one skill folder, CC0.
2. Put the folders side by side in one skills directory, names unchanged: ingredient-studio/, fruit-maillard-prep/, ingredient-treatments/, ingredient-sensory/. The skills find each other through relative paths (../ingredient-studio/data/registry.yaml); a specialist without the router beside it works standalone from its own data/ files.
3. Install them where your Claude setup reads skills: upload each folder in Claude (Settings → Capabilities → Skills), or point Claude Code or Cowork at the directory. The scripts need Python 3 and PyYAML (pip install pyyaml).
4. Make the data yours. The zips ship the ingredient registry with its entries and hazards but no house preferences or design links, an empty batch log, and each specialist's data/setup.md describing this brewery's kit. Edit setup.md to your equipment first: specialists plan only around kit listed as held. Set house: preferences in registry.yaml as you go.
5. Check the install: python ingredient-studio/scripts/specialists_check.py and python ingredient-studio/scripts/registry_check.py, or ask the router for studio:check. Both should report no errors.
6. Adapt: the register (data/specialists.yaml) lists which specialists exist; remove the ones you did not install, or mark them planned. To add your own specialist, follow references/specialist-contract.md and references/specialist-lifecycle.md. The guide: paths point at this wiki's pages; they are only checked with --repo.

The skills assume a mixed-fermentation home brewery working in 4.5 L carboys and UK units and rules (FSA, HMRC). The safety rules are written for that setting; read setup.md and the safety references before you rely on them.