JevMade field notes / Worked recipe

Choose categories without closing the wrong branch

A product-sorting recipe compares choosing from every category at once with keeping several likely departments before choosing a narrower category.

Original by Jeroen Erne / NexibeoClassification

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Credits and license

“05 · Category trees” by Jeroen Erne / Nexibeo. Read the original source.

This expanded guide is an AI-narrated adaptation of the source’s essential explanation, examples and caveats, not a word-for-word reading. The synthetic voice does not imitate the author or imply their endorsement.

License: MIT

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2026 Jeroen Erne (https://nexibeo.com, https://completeaitraining.com)

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Our summary

A shop may group its products into departments and smaller categories. This recipe compares two ways to ask Jev where a product belongs: show every final category together, or first narrow the list to a few promising departments.

The staged version keeps the best two departments rather than committing to one immediately. It then asks Jev to choose among their smaller categories. Keeping alternatives gives products near a boundary another chance, while shorter option lists can reduce the amount of text sent.

Both methods worked on the author's small set of clear product titles, which does not establish performance on difficult stock. Staging uses more requests and can still discard the right branch. Category size, description length, and actual mistakes should guide which approach a team uses.

Key takeaways

Try a single choice when the category list is manageable.
Keep more than one possible parent category for boundary cases.
Compare request count and mistakes, not only the amount of text processed.

More guides →See the experiments →