thatcleanchef-seo — SKILL

Source-of-truth instructions for Claude Code on thatcleanchef.com. Loaded every session — keep it concise, keep it current.

1. Positioning

ThatCleanChef is a chef-tested clean-eating recipe site that respects your time. Every recipe carries:

• A USDA-sourced Nutrition Ledger
• Honest prep + cook + total times (no hiding the dishes or the rest)
• Original photography (16:9, 4:3, 1:1 for the rich-result image carousel)
• A registered-dietitian review byline
• A "Why we tested this 3 times" methodology card on flagship recipes

This is NOT a peptide-therapy nutrition site. It is the network's only display-ad revenue site (Mediavine at 50k sessions, Raptive at 100k).

Audience: Kate, 34, busy professional. Cooks 4–6 dinners a week. Reads on phone in the kitchen. Tired of food-blog preamble, inflated prep times, and Pinterest clickbait.

Voice: confident-chef-friend. "We tested this three times to nail the salt level." Specific over generic. Warmth without saccharine. No "guilt-free," "skinny," "flat belly," or "you-deserve-this."

2. The 5 hubs

Mapped 1:1 to lib/content/hubs.ts. Every recipe slots into one primary hub; cross-tags handle the multi-dimensional reality.

slug	name	what's here
diet-specific	Diet-Specific Recipes	Anti-inflammatory, Whole30, Mediterranean, PCOS, low-FODMAP
meal-types	Meal Types	Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, dessert, drinks
protein-forward	Protein-Forward Recipes	30g+ protein per serving, real-food only
technique	Technique & Reference	How to roast a chicken, make bone broth, cook salmon four ways
seasonal-menus	Seasonal Menus & Meal Plans	Quarterly menus + 3 weekly meal plans (Anti-Inflammatory, Mediterranean, High-Protein)

3. URL architecture

/                                    # homepage
/guides/[hub]                        # 5 hub landing pages (dynamic)
/recipes                             # full recipe index
/recipes/[category]                  # high-protein-X SERP filters
/meal-plans/[slug]                   # 3 weekly meal plans (anti-inflammatory, mediterranean, high-protein)
/team/[slug]                         # author + reviewer profiles
/[slug]                              # individual recipe page
/[locale]                            # 12-locale homepage (en at /, others at prefix)

Reserved routes are listed in app/[slug]/page.tsx RESERVED set.

4. Mandatory schema on every recipe (the carousel lever)

Recipe SEO lives or dies on Recipe schema completeness. Every recipe page emits:

• Recipe JSON-LD with FULL payload:
  • name, description
  • image — array of 3 (16:9, 4:3, 1:1) — required for image carousel inclusion
  • author.@id resolving to /team/{slug}#person
  • datePublished + dateModified
  • recipeCuisine + recipeCategory + keywords
  • recipeYield, prepTime, cookTime, totalTime (ISO 8601)
  • nutrition.NutritionInformation with calories/protein/fat/carbs/fiber/sugar/sodium/servingSize
  • recipeIngredient array (full ingredient lines as written)
  • recipeInstructions as HowToStep array
  • aggregateRating ONLY if real ratings exist — never fake
• Article for the editorial wrapping
• BreadcrumbList
• FAQPage when the post has an FAQ section
• reviewedBy Person on every recipe (RD reviewer)

5. Display ads — the Mediavine thesis

ThatCleanChef is the only site in the EcomSEO health network where display ads are permitted. SITE.displayAdsEnabled flag gates them — keep false until 50k sessions/mo + Mediavine onboarding complete.

When live, ad placement rules are non-negotiable:

• NEVER between recipe ingredients
• NEVER between recipe steps
• NEVER inside the Nutrition Ledger
• NEVER inside the Chef Notes / "Why we tested" block
• Above the recipe card, between H2 sections, in the right rail (sticky), and below the FAQ are all allowed slots
• Mediavine script ships behind a content-availability check: <MediavineScript /> returns null when SITE.displayAdsEnabled === false

6. Voice — what we don't say

• "guilt-free", "skinny", "slimming", "flat belly", "detox", "clean girl"
• "miracle", "shocking", "secret"
• First-person preamble ("My grandmother...", "I love when...")
• Inflated prep times that hide dish-washing or resting time
• Diet-scolding ("forbidden food," "cheat day")
• Prescriptive medical advice — never claim a recipe "treats" any condition

7. Photography requirement

Every published recipe ships with three aspect ratios in /public/images/recipes/{slug}-{16x9,4x3,1x1}.jpg. The 4:3 + 1:1 variants are the rich-result image-carousel lever. Photo requirement enforced in CI before any post can move from status: draft to status: published.

8. Launch state

• SITE.launched = true — site is indexable
• SITE.displayAdsEnabled = false — ads gated until the threshold
• 12-locale i18n shipped (en canonical, 11 locale prefixes)
• 23 recipes live as of 2026-04-28; target 80 by month 6 to qualify for Mediavine

9. What ships next (priority order)

1. Multi-aspect (4:3 + 1:1) image generation for the 23 existing recipes via kie.ai Nano Banana
2. The 17-recipe pipeline to clear the 40-Wave-1 mark
3. Mediavine <MediavineScript /> component + ad slots in templates (gated false)
4. The 3 RD-reviewed weekly meal plans (Anti-Inflammatory 7-day, Mediterranean 7-day, High-Protein 7-day)
5. Full Recipe schema audit — every recipe must emit the 14-field payload above

10. Pointers

• ~/Developer/active/health-network/content/thatcleanchef/brand-book.md — voice, audience (Kate), anti-patterns
• ~/Developer/active/health-network/docs/topical-maps/thatcleanchef.md — the 150-recipe roadmap
• docs/site-spec.md — Recipe schema spec, display-ad rules, Mediavine onboarding checklist
• docs/affiliate-partners.md — Mediavine setup, never-affiliate list
• lib/content/hubs.ts — single source of truth for hubs
• lib/content/posts.ts — recipe data
• lib/content/team.ts — authors + reviewer (Lena Marsh RDN, no peptide-specialism framing)