gis-workflow-recipes

name	gis-workflow-recipes
description	Step-by-step workflow templates for recurring multi-step GIS analyses — point interpolation with zonal summary, multi-criteria suitability overlay, proximity/impact assessment, and two-date change detection. Use when the task matches one of these shapes and you would otherwise have to invent the analysis path yourself.
always	false
version	1
author	GISclaw, distilled from the GeoAnalystBench experiments
keywords	["interpolate","interpolation","kriging","zonal","choropleth","suitability","weighted overlay","multi-criteria","risk score","buffer","proximity","impact","affected area","change detection","land cover change","two dates"]

GIS workflow recipes — router

The experiments behind this system found that the hard part of a multi-step GIS task is not writing the code — it is knowing which steps to write. Weaker models collapse without a template and work well with one; stronger models get a smaller but real benefit. This skill is that template library.

Do not work from this router alone. It only tells you which recipe to load.

Choosing a recipe

Match the task to one shape, then read exactly one file:

The task looks like	Read
Scattered measurements → continuous surface → summarise per polygon	references/interpolation-zonal.md
Combine several weighted criteria into a suitability/risk score	references/suitability-overlay.md
What does a line/point feature affect within some distance	references/proximity-impact.md
Compare the same area at two dates	references/change-detection.md

If none matches, do not force one — plan the task yourself and follow the standing operating discipline instead.

How to use a recipe

1. Read the one matching file with skill(name="gis-workflow-recipes", path="references/<file>.md").
2. Restate the recipe's steps as a concrete plan against the actual layers and field names in this project — never against the recipe's placeholder names. Inspect the data first if you have not already.
3. Drop steps the task does not need, and say in your Thought which you dropped and why. A recipe is a checklist, not a script to execute blindly.
4. Every recipe ends with a verification block. That part is not optional.

What recipes deliberately do not do

They do not choose your CRS, class breaks, or weights for you — those depend on the data and the client. Where a recipe says "choose", make the choice explicitly and record the reason in your Thought so it lands in the run record.