the irreducible minimum; the most essential components:
Reduce this report to its bare bones. There is nothing left of the town but the bare bones—a couple of stores, a church, and a few houses.
Origin
1910-15
Related forms
bare-bones, adjective
Examples from the web for bare bones
It is the bare bones of quantum mechanics that have proved to be consistent with what is presently known of the subatomic world.
His tax reform plan is so bare bones that judging its credibility is almost impossible.
There are no star professors, little research, and the administrative pool is bare bones.
Most corpses decayed normally, leaving bare bones as the only proof of lives extinguished.
But if the series doesn't evolve from the bare bones of its premise, it won't stay compelling for long.
Here is the bare bones explanation for your question.
Idioms and Phrases with bare bones
bare bones
The mere essentials or plain, unadorned framework of something, as in This outline gives just the bare bones of the story; details will come later. This phrase transfers the naked skeleton of a body to figurative use. [ c. 1900 ]