Recursive Decomposition Skill Handle long-context tasks with Claude Code through recursive decomposition What It Does • Installation • How It Works • Benchmarks • Acknowledgments When analyzing large codebases, processing many documents, or aggregating information across dozens of files, Claude's context window becomes a bottleneck. As context grows, "context rot" degrades performance: - Missed de
Add this skill
npx mdskills install massimodeluisa/recursive-decomposition-skillStrong documentation for handling large-scale tasks, but actual skill instructions not visible
Recursive Decomposition Skill
Handle long-context tasks with Claude Code through recursive decomposition
What It Does • Installation • Usage • How It Works • Benchmarks • Acknowledgments
When analyzing large codebases, processing many documents, or aggregating information across dozens of files, Claude's context window becomes a bottleneck. As context grows, "context rot" degrades performance:
This skill implements Recursive Language Model (RLM) strategies from Zhang, Kraska, and Khattab's 2025 research, enabling Claude Code to handle inputs up to 2 orders of magnitude beyond normal context limits.
Instead of cramming everything into context, Claude learns to:
| Task Type | Without Skill | With Skill |
|---|---|---|
| Analyze 100+ files | Context overflow / degraded results | Systematic coverage via decomposition |
| Multi-document QA | Missed information | Comprehensive extraction |
| Codebase-wide search | Manual iteration | Parallel sub-agent analysis |
| Information aggregation | Incomplete synthesis | Map-reduce pattern |
We tested on the Anthropic Cookbook (196 files, 356MB):
Task: "Find all Anthropic API calling patterns across the codebase"
Results:
├── Files scanned: 142
├── Files with API calls: 18
├── Patterns identified: 8 distinct patterns
├── Anti-patterns detected: 4
└── Output: Comprehensive report with file:line references
# Add the marketplace
claude plugin marketplace add massimodeluisa/recursive-decomposition-skill
# Install the plugin
claude plugin install recursive-decomposition@recursive-decomposition
# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/massimodeluisa/recursive-decomposition-skill.git ~/recursive-decomposition-skill
# Add as local marketplace
claude plugin marketplace add ~/recursive-decomposition-skill
# Install the plugin
claude plugin install recursive-decomposition
# Copy skill directly to Claude's skills directory
cp -r plugins/recursive-decomposition/skills/recursive-decomposition ~/.claude/skills/
After installation, restart Claude Code for the skill to take effect.
# Update marketplace index
claude plugin marketplace update
# Update the plugin
claude plugin update recursive-decomposition@recursive-decomposition
The skill activates automatically when you describe tasks involving:
"analyze all files in...")"aggregate information from...")"find all occurrences across...")"summarize these 50 documents...")"Analyze error handling patterns across this entire codebase"
"Find all TODO comments in the project and categorize by priority"
"What API endpoints are defined across all route files?"
"Summarize the key decisions from all meeting notes in /docs"
"Find security vulnerabilities across all Python files"
The skill recognizes these patterns:
"analyze all files""process this large document""aggregate information from""search across the codebase"The skill is designed for complex, long-context tasks. Use it when:
When NOT to use:
Single file edits → Direct processing is faster
Specific function lookup → Use Grep directly
Tasks
Alex L. Zhang
[@a1zhang](https://x.com/a1zhang)
MIT CSAIL
Tim Kraska
[@tim_kraska](https://x.com/tim_kraska)
MIT Professor
Omar Khattab
[@lateinteraction](https://x.com/lateinteraction)
MIT CSAIL, Creator of DSPy
Recursive Language Models
Alex L. Zhang, Tim Kraska, Omar Khattab
arXiv:2512.24601 • December 2025
We propose Recursive Language Models (RLMs), an inference technique enabling LLMs to handle prompts up to two orders of magnitude beyond model context windows through programmatic decomposition and recursive self-invocation over prompt segments.
Contributions welcome! Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.
Massimo De Luisa — @massimodeluisa
MIT License — see LICENSE for details.
Best experience: Claude Code
/plugin marketplace add massimodeluisa/recursive-decomposition-skillThen /plugin menu → select skill → restart. Use /skill-name:init for first-time setup.
Other platforms
Install via CLI
npx mdskills install massimodeluisa/recursive-decomposition-skillRecursive Decomposition Skill is a free, open-source AI agent skill. Recursive Decomposition Skill Handle long-context tasks with Claude Code through recursive decomposition What It Does • Installation • How It Works • Benchmarks • Acknowledgments When analyzing large codebases, processing many documents, or aggregating information across dozens of files, Claude's context window becomes a bottleneck. As context grows, "context rot" degrades performance: - Missed de
Install Recursive Decomposition Skill with a single command:
npx mdskills install massimodeluisa/recursive-decomposition-skillThis downloads the skill files into your project and your AI agent picks them up automatically.
Recursive Decomposition Skill works with Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, Vscode Copilot, Windsurf, Continue Dev, Codex, Gemini Cli, Amp, Roo Code, Goose, Opencode, Trae, Qodo, Command Code. Skills use the open SKILL.md format which is compatible with any AI coding agent that reads markdown instructions.