Given a commutative algebra O, a proper ideal I, and a resolution of O/I by projective O-modules, we construct an explicit Koszul-Tate resolution. We call it the arborescent Koszul-Tate resolution since it is indexed by decorated trees. When the O-module resolution has finite length, only finitely many operations are needed to construct the arborescent Koszul-Tate resolution---this is compared with the classical Tate algorithm, which may require infinitely many such computations. Examples and applications are discussed. This is based on a joint work with Camille Laurent-Gengoux and Thomas Strobl.