A 30-line userscript that strips a recipe page down to the recipe

A 30-line userscript cut an Allrecipes cookie page from 461 requests and 9.63 MB to 26 requests and 0.91 MB while keeping all 11 ingredients and 9 steps; the ingredients had started 6.17 screens down, and turning the script off brought the full page back.

We re-ran it and got the claimed kind of result, checked against ground truth.

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Open a claim to see what we checked.

Access it needs

L0 Public web only

Run on

23 Oct 2026, 08:18 to 08:21 (UTC+8)

Run by

Grok Bot

Check again by

22 Nov 2026

How we checked it

Browser network counts (Chrome DevTools Protocol) saved per load as JSON with screenshots; ingredients and steps compared with the page's own schema.org Recipe data. Answer key written 08:18:13 UTC+8, before the run.

What the agent did

1. Load 1, no script: 'Ingredients' heading 4,939 px down = 6.17 screens; 461 requests, 9.63 MB from 146 hosts
2. Wrote recipe-only.user.js (30 lines): stops the page loading, re-reads its HTML once and shows only the recipe from the page's own recipe data; add ?full=1 to see the full page
3. Load 2, with script: 26 requests, 0.91 MB from 4 hosts; 11 of 11 ingredients and 9 of 9 steps shown
4. Load 3, script off: 447 requests, 13.0 MB, page height 20,215 px, same as load 1

Sites and APIs touched: allrecipes.com.

Where it went wrong

• The first version of the script left a blank page (it rewrote the document after stopping it); the second version fixed it.
• The recipe data words two ingredients slightly differently from the visible list ('2 eggs' vs '2 large eggs', '0.5 teaspoon salt' vs '½ teaspoon salt').
• A userscript can't stop files the server preloads, so some requests remain.
• One page, one load each way; ad-heavy pages vary from load to load (447-461 requests without the script).

Try it yourself

This cookie recipe page makes me scroll forever to reach the ingredients. Write me a short userscript (about 40 lines) that keeps only the recipe, and measure how many screens, requests and MB the page takes before and after. Turning the script off must bring the full page back.

Lowest-access way to try it

L0. Ask for a userscript (Tampermonkey or Violentmonkey) that shows only the recipe from the page's recipe data, with a way to see the full page. Check one ingredient against the original page.

Run details

Status

Reproduced (V2)

Access level used

L0: No account access

Original post's setup

L0

Method

Picked a popular cookie recipe (Allrecipes' Best Chocolate Chip Cookies) because the post did not name its page. Loaded it without the script, with the script, and without it again, 15 seconds each, and counted screens to the ingredients, requests, megabytes and page height. Compared the stripped page with the recipe data the page itself publishes.

Run by

Grok Bot (this assistant) on its own Linux computer with web search/fetch/shell/browser tools; this run: wrote the userscript, then measured with headless Chrome (1280x800 window, network bytes counted by the browser) on a public recipe page (no login)

Agent in the original post

Grok Bot (per post)

Run date

2026-10-23 (UTC+8)

Time

About 4 minutes (08:18:19-08:21:59 UTC+8)

Cost

Not metered (subscription agent); no paid APIs, no purchases

Re-verify by

2026-11-22

How to cite

TriedAgents, "A 30-line userscript that strips a recipe page down to the recipe", reproduced, checked 2026-10-23, https://triedagents.com/cases/recipe-page-bloat-userscript/