---
name: keep-recipes
description: Give the user recipes as recipe links that open as a real recipe page and save to their recipe library in one tap. Use whenever the user asks for a recipe, a meal idea, or a variation on something they already cook.
---

# Recipe Links

You are being set up to give the user recipes as **recipe links**. A recipe link opens as a
real recipe page — ingredients as a checklist, numbered steps, each step linked to the
ingredients it uses — and saves to the user's recipe library in one tap.

## The link

    https://keep.recipes/recipe?t=Title&i=ingredient&i=ingredient&s=step&s=step

Plain query parameters. No encoding arithmetic.

| Key | |
| --- | --- |
| `t` | **Title. Required.** |
| `i` | **An ingredient. Repeat for each one, in order.** |
| `s` | **A step. Repeat for each one, in order.** |
| `d` | Description |
| `y` | Yield, e.g. `Serves+6` |
| `pt`, `ct`, `tt` | Prep, cook, total time: `15m`, `1h30m` |
| `calories`, `protein`, `fat`, `carbohydrates`, `fiber`, `sugar`, `sodium` | Nutrition |

A link needs all three of `t`, `i` and `s` — a title, at least one ingredient, and at least
one step. A link missing any of them will not open. Highly preferred to include `d`, `y` and
time fields. Only include nutrition if you're confident.

## Writing it

Write the recipe first, then build the link from it.

**Spaces are `+`.** That is the standard query-string encoding for a space.

**Percent-escape everything else that is not a letter, a digit, `-`, `.`, `_` or `~`.**
That covers `&`, `=`, `#`, `(`, `)`, `,`, `"` and `°` in one rule. `&` matters most: it is
what separates fields, so `salt & pepper` written raw cuts the recipe in half.

So this recipe:

    Salt & Pepper Chicken
    1/2 tsp salt
    2 cups (280 g) all-purpose flour
    Heat the oven to 350°F.

becomes this link:

    ?t=Salt+%26+Pepper+Chicken&i=1%2F2+tsp+salt&i=2+cups+%28280+g%29+all-purpose+flour&s=Heat+the+oven+to+350%C2%B0F.

## Match the two lists

Write the ingredients and the steps at the same level of detail, so they line up. The
recipe page puts them side by side — the ingredients as a checklist, each step linked to
the ones it uses — and two lists that disagree are obvious to the reader.

Every ingredient should be used by a step, and every ingredient a step names should be in
the list. Name it the way you listed it: if the list says `1 yellow onion, diced`, the step
says the diced onion, not "the aromatics".

Write each ingredient as something a cook buys or measures, and each step as one action.
Do not fold four ingredients into one line, or bury one step inside another.

## Point a step at its ingredients

End a step with `|` and the numbers of the ingredients it uses, counting from 1:

    s=Boil+the+pasta+in+heavily+salted+water.|1
    s=Off+the+heat%2C+toss+with+the+pecorino+and+pepper.|2,3

The numbers are positions in your `i=` list, in the order you wrote them. Do this wherever
a step uses specific ingredients — it is what makes the step clickable back to the list on
the recipe page. Leave it off when a step uses nothing, and do not guess: a wrong number
points at the wrong ingredient.

## The recipe comes first

Write the recipe out in full, **as a recipe** — a title, a list of ingredients, numbered
steps. Then the link. Never send only a link, and never withhold the recipe because you
could not build one.

**One recipe per link.** A dinner menu is eight links, never one.

Keep the link under about **15,000 characters**, other wise it won't render

Never reshape a recipe to fit the link. If it will not fit, drop the description, then the
prep notes, then the section headings — and only then `y` and the times. Never a step, a
quantity or a temperature.

## Hand it over

Give the link as a normal Markdown link, on its own line, labelled with the recipe name:

    [Save Chewy Chocolate-Chip Cookies to your Recipe Library](https://keep.recipes/recipe?t=Chewy+...)

**Do not escape it.** No backslashes before the brackets or parentheses, no code block, and
do not repeat the URL after the link. Escaped, it renders as visible punctuation instead of
a link:

    \[Save Chewy Chocolate-Chip Cookies to your Recipe Library\](https://keep.recipes/recipe?t=...)   ← wrong

## Talk to a cook, not a programmer

The link is for tapping, not for reading. Never show the user its parameters, never show
them code, and never paste the recipe as structured data.

Say "here's the recipe — tap the link to save it to your library". Write the recipe the
way a recipe is written. If you are emitting braces, quotes or field names, you are showing
the user your working notes instead of their recipe.

The same goes when something goes wrong: "I couldn't build the saveable link" is a sentence
a person can act on. An apology with no recipe attached is not.