CHAPTER 05 / 7 MIN READ
Divide the work
Give the model a way to inspect information without requiring it all in one call.
START HERE
You have a large collection of records. The question needs a few details scattered across it. Pasting everything into a prompt is only one possible architecture.
Delegation helps when decomposition preserves the information needed to answer the whole question.
1.Put the data outside the prompt.
Recursive Language Models treat a long input as part of an external environment. The model can use code to inspect and divide it, then make recursive model calls over selected parts.
A REPL is an interactive programming environment that retains variables between commands. Here, a large text can remain in a variable while the model sees a small inspection result. The data can be larger than the active context.
2.A subproblem needs a contract.
A parent can ask a child to inspect a subset and return a specific result. The contract should say what evidence to preserve and how to report uncertainty. “Summarise this” may erase the one exception the parent needs.
Recursive calls are not automatically a team of independent experts. They are additional model computations with inputs, outputs, costs, and possible errors. The parent still has to assemble a supported answer.
3.Keep the bookkeeping visible.
Useful decomposition requires coverage: which parts were checked, which remain, and which results conflict? It also requires a way to aggregate cost and stop work that no longer helps.
A model with tools and subcalls can fail because the question was split poorly. The design question is not “how many agents?” but “what information must survive each boundary?”
Find the exception
BEFORE
Summarise every document and then summarise the summaries. A rare exception may disappear.
AFTER
Ask each subcall for records matching the exception rule, with identifiers and excerpts; combine and check coverage.
The information contract matters more than the visual shape of the delegation tree.
PAUSE & PREDICT
What should a child return when the parent must justify a claim?
Parallel work has coordination overhead. Some tasks depend on sequential discoveries and cannot be split into independent pieces without losing meaning.
GO TO THE SOURCE
Recursive Language Models2025 ↗This chapter is an original teaching synthesis. Open each research note for source links, findings, and classification caveats.
TAKE IT INTO YOUR OWN WORK
Split a research question into three subproblems. Specify what each result must contain so you can verify the final answer.