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Create your first recipe

In teams using coding assistants, sharing and reusing prompts that work is often tedious.

A Packmind Recipe is an executable, step-by-step guide that tells the AI assistant exactly how to perform a development task so your team’s practices are applied consistently and reproducibly.

Examples

  • “Add a new REST endpoint” — steps to define the route, implement the handler, add input validation, write tests, and update API docs.
  • “Set up a CI pipeline for a project” — steps to configure the workflow, run lint/tests/build on each push/PR, and report status checks.
warning

The MCP server must be configured to create Recipes. See the setup guide: Get started with the MCP server.

How to​

  1. Open your IDE and your coding assistant in agentic mode.
  2. For this demo, we will create a language-agnostic recipe. (You can also target a specific language or framework.)
  3. Type this prompt:
Analyze our codebase and create a Packmind recipe to add a new endpoint to our API.

How it works​

The AI agent will automatically follow the recipe creation workflow which guides it through:

  1. Understanding the process - The agent identifies the development process you want to capture as a recipe
  2. Structuring the recipe - The agent breaks down the process into clear, actionable steps with:
    • When to use scenarios - Specific situations where the recipe applies
    • Context validation checkpoints - Questions to clarify before implementing
    • Step-by-step instructions - Atomic, repeatable actions with optional code examples
  3. Finalization - Once structured properly, the agent calls the packmind_create_recipe MCP tool

Your new recipe will be available in the Packmind web app, in the Recipes panel.

tip

The workflow ensures recipes are well-structured and reusable by enforcing clear steps, validation checkpoints, and usage scenarios. This makes them effective for AI agents and team members alike.

Tips​

The quality of the generated recipe depends mostly on the level of detail you provide to your coding assistant.

When capturing a Recipe, you can, for example:

  • Use the current conversation

    Example

    Create a Packmind recipe for adding a new endpoint based on your last suggested changes.

  • Mention example files or directories

    Example

    Using the file `MyPageFile.tsx`, create a Packmind recipe for bootstrapping a new page in the frontend.

  • Use a Git commit diff

    Example

    Read commit abcd123 and create a recipe for migrating an Angular component to React.