weekly-meal-selection

name	weekly-meal-selection
description	Generate a complete 7-day meal plan (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner) based on family preferences, perishability rules, and intelligent lunch selection.

Mealie Weekly Meal Selection Skill

This skill is responsible for generating a complete 7-day meal plan. It intelligently selects dinner recipes from a provided catalogue, assigns breakfasts, and strategically chooses lunches based on the previous night's dinner and nutritional balance.

Inputs

• family_dietary_rules_prompt: Family-specific dietary rules and preferences.
• start_date: The first day of the plan (always a Saturday).
• exclusions: A JSON object mapping day names to lists of meals to skip (e.g., {"Monday": ["dinner"]}).
• freezer_pantry_fridge_items_priority: Items to use up this week (comma-separated text from the user).
• mandatory_priority_recipes: A JSON object mapping each user-specified item to its resolved recipe ID from the catalogue (e.g., {"pesto": "uuid-1", "frozen chicken thighs": "uuid-2"}). Every recipe ID listed here MUST appear in the final plan.
• special_requests: Theme or specific request text.
• recently_planned_recipes: List of recipe names to avoid repeating.
• recipe_catalogue_json: Available Mealie dinner recipes.

Workflow

1. Plan Dinners (Selection): Select exactly the required number of dinner recipes from the catalogue (one for each non-excluded night).

   • Anti-Hallucination: ONLY select IDs from the provided catalogue.
   • MANDATORY "Use Up" Items (HIGHEST PRIORITY): If mandatory_priority_recipes is provided, you MUST include EVERY recipe ID from that mapping in the plan. This is non-negotiable. Do not skip any of them. If there are 3 items, all 3 corresponding recipes must appear as dinners. The remaining dinner slots should be filled with other catalogue recipes following the priorities below.
   • Other Priorities: Medium: Special requests; General: Variety, fiber, no processed meats.
   • Ingredient Synergy / Re-use: Prioritize selecting recipes that share overlapping fresh/perishable ingredients (e.g., cilantro, lime, cabbage, spinach, broccoli, fresh herbs) to minimize grocery waste.
   • Banned Recipes & Dietary Exclusions:
     • Dietary Rules: You MUST strictly follow all meat prohibitions and dietary constraints defined in the family_dietary_rules_prompt.
     • Banned Recipes Skill: Strictly avoid recipes matching the names, variants, or themes of banned recipes defined in the Banned Recipes Skill (e.g., cilantro/coriander soups). Use semantic reasoning for enforcement.

2. Plan Dinners (Ordering & Griddle Prep):

   • Perishability & 'Use Up' Sequencing (STRICT RULE):
     • Early Week (Sat-Tue): Reserve these days for recipes using fresh/highly-perishable ingredients (e.g., fresh fish, soft greens, berries, fresh herbs).
     • Late Week (Wed-Fri): Use these days for recipes using frozen, canned, or shelf-stable ingredients.
     • 'Use Up' Item Analysis: Look at the descriptions/names in mandatory_priority_recipes and freezer_pantry_fridge_items_priority.
       • If an item contains keywords like "frozen", "canned", "shelf-stable", "dry", or "pantry", you MUST schedule the corresponding recipe for Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday.
       • Conversely, if an item is described as "fresh" or is a fresh vegetable/fruit, it MUST be scheduled for Saturday, Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday.
   • Blackstone Griddle & Batch Optimization:
     • Semantic Detection: Identify if a recipe is compatible with a Blackstone griddle (even if not explicitly named so) based on ingredients and techniques (e.g., stir-fries, smashed burgers, seared proteins, chopped vegetables).
     • Prep Notes: If a dinner is griddle-compatible, or if adjacent dinners share prep steps, you MUST provide a prep_note.
     • Batch Cooking: Sequence dinners to maximize batch-cooking. For example, if cooking chicken on the griddle for Saturday, suggest prepping Monday's fajita vegetables or Sunday's stir-fry tofu at the same time.
   • Nutritional Balance: Avoid scheduling heavy, high-calorie dinners or low-protein/low-fiber dinners consecutively. Distribute nutritional loads evenly across the week.

3. Plan Lunches (Intelligent Selection): For each day, choose between "Leftovers" or "PB&J Sandwich".

   • Leftovers Rule: Assign "Leftovers" for lunch if the PREVIOUS night's dinner was a large, home-cooked meal suitable for leftovers.
   • PB&J Rule: Assign "PB&J Sandwich" if:
     1. The previous night's dinner was "Eating Out" (no leftovers available).
     2. The previous night's dinner was a smaller or lighter meal.
     3. To provide variety after several consecutive days of leftovers.
   • Nutritional Balance: If the upcoming dinner is very heavy, lean toward a lighter lunch.

4. Plan Breakfasts: Assign standard options providing daily variety. The allowed options are: "Cereal & Milk", "Yogurt with Granola", "Bagels & Cream Cheese", "English Muffins with Jam", "Oats", and "Toast with Jam". Do not use any other breakfast titles.

5. Respect Meal Exclusions: Before finalizing each day, check the exclusions input.

   • If a day is in exclusions and breakfast is in its list, set breakfast to "Skipped".
   • If lunch is in the list, set lunch to "Skipped".
   • If dinner is in the list, set dinner to "Eating Out".
   • You MUST NOT select recipes for excluded dinners.

Output

Return a JSON object containing a days array. Each day must have date, and a meals object with breakfast, lunch, dinner, and prep_note. For dinner, use the id from the catalogue. For breakfast and lunch, use the string title (e.g., "Leftovers", "PB&J Sandwich", "Cereal & Milk"). For prep_note, provide a short, actionable tip (string) if there is an opportunity to batch-cook ingredients or prep ahead for subsequent days (especially on the Blackstone griddle), otherwise set it to null.

Example Output

{
  "days": [
    {
      "date": "2026-05-30",
      "meals": {
        "breakfast": "Cereal & Milk",
        "lunch": "Leftovers",
        "dinner": "recipe-uuid-123",
        "prep_note": "While griddling the chicken tonight, cook the tofu for Sunday's stir-fry to save prep time."
      }
    },
    {
      "date": "2026-05-31",
      "meals": {
        "breakfast": "Yogurt with Granola",
        "lunch": "Leftovers",
        "dinner": "recipe-uuid-456",
        "prep_note": null
      }