Distill Genes, Skills, and Recipes
Distillation is not a conversation summary. It turns an evidenced approach into a bounded, verifiable, reusable capability. Genes, Skills, and Recipes operate at different levels.
Three outputs
| Output | What it should express |
|---|---|
| Gene | A reusable strategy with trigger signals, steps, boundaries, and a validation approach. |
SKILL.md | Host-agent instructions, tool rules, and operating conventions. |
| Recipe | A complete reuse workflow that orders Genes and Capsules. |
skill-distill is a legacy entry point. Current workflows should use Gene distillation and Recipe commands separately instead of treating all three objects as one “skill file.”
Distill a Gene
The CLI provides a structured entry point:
bash
evolver distill --category <category> --signals <signal-a,signal-b> --strategy "<step 1; step 2>"
Prepare the following first:
- At least one traceable success or failure record.
- Trigger signals and conditions where the approach does not apply.
- Ordered strategy steps.
- Artifacts, validation commands, and outcome evidence.
- Failure handling and recovery.
Build a Recipe
The current CLI Recipe workflow includes:
bash
evolver recipe build
evolver recipe from-skills
evolver recipe search
evolver recipe reuse
Use evolver --help for parameters in the installed version. A Recipe should identify step order, inputs, outputs, asset dependencies, and completion criteria.
Quality gate
- One success produces a candidate, not proof of reusability.
- Failure experience may be distilled when failure signals and avoidance are explicit.
- Steps that depend on environment, version, or permissions must declare those prerequisites.
- Validate locally before publishing; when an approach cannot be reproduced, do not “fix” the asset by changing the conclusion.
Related pages
EvoX Docs · Developers · Extend and automate