[TeMPOraL]

I'd start with a DAG.

In fact, going through a project management basics training at work recently reminded me that cooking recipes are isomorphic to project plans. Which makes DAGs an obvious natural representation for a recipe, and incidentally, makes the Gantt chart one of the best ways of looking at it.

[addaon]

A Gantt chart for a single recipe may make some sense, but doesn’t really add value. A Gantt chart for a whole dinner — I’m making these six dishes, figure out what I have to do when — is much more interesting. But for this to be passive, the edges on your DAG need to carry metadata about how long the action can/must/should be delayed (no active work), and the nodes (tasks) must carry metadata on how long the task takes. For example, after a whipping my egg whites, they can’t just sit there for two hours; and boiling my pasta water may take at least 12 minutes, but I’d rather not leave it on the boil for another 30.

[TeMPOraL]

> the edges on your DAG need to carry metadata about how long the action can/must/should be delayed (no active work), and the nodes (tasks) must carry metadata on how long the task takes.

Yes, those are all constraints that need to be stored there. Some of them are fixed, others can be computed when optimizing the plan.

It's also information you should have specified on the recipe. Most of it usually isn't, as it's either obvious[0] or the recipe author doesn't even realize it's a parameter.

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[0] - Some obvious to anyone, some obvious to someone very experienced at cooking. Confusing them makes things really difficult for beginners.