Mealie-backed AI meal planner + shopping list for the family
Kayos
10849e0e95
The 'fancy data fun' Cobb wanted: pre-compute structured metadata for
every recipe so the plan generator can match preferences to actual
recipe characteristics, not just match keywords on names.
Sonnet returns per recipe:
- tags[]: curated descriptors (high-protein, weeknight, one-pan,
leftovers-good, kid-friendly, etc — picks 3-8 that genuinely apply)
- cuisine, complexity (easy/medium/involved), estimated_minutes
- meal_type (breakfast/lunch/dinner/snack/dessert/side/sauce/drink)
- primary_protein (chicken/beef/pork/fish/seafood/tofu/...)
- primary_carb (rice/pasta/bread/potato/tortilla/quinoa/...)
- veg_forward (veg-forward/mixed/meat-forward)
- comfort_tier (weeknight-easy/hearty-comfort/fancy-occasion/...)
- season_fit[] + summary one-liner + best_for short phrase
Schema:
- Migration 024: cauldron_recipe_meta keyed by (household_id, recipe_slug),
meta_json + enrich_version (bumping the version invalidates the cache
and forces re-walk). One row per Mealie recipe Cobb owns.
- Migration 025: cauldron_enrich_jobs — job runner state. No
proposals/review needed since metadata is purely additive.
Forge:
- enrich_recipe(recipe) builds a compact prompt with name + description
+ ingredients + steps (capped at 2000 chars total) + yields, asks
Sonnet for the structured blob. _extract_recipe_meta validates and
coerces types.
Module enrich_recipes.py:
- Daemon thread runner, walks all household recipes, skips already-
enriched at current ENRICH_VERSION (idempotent), respects external
cancel + stuck-job recovery. Skips cross-household recipes (Lake
Elsinore stuff visible but not enrichable).
Plan generator hookup:
- /api/plan/generate + regenerate now pulls cauldron_recipe_meta and
splices it into the recipe pool prompt. Each pool line goes from:
- chicken-stir-fry: Chicken Stir Fry [asian]
to:
- chicken-stir-fry: Chicken Stir Fry [asian · easy · 30min ·
protein:chicken · carb:rice · high-protein/weeknight/one-pan]
quick weeknight stir-fry with leftover-friendly portions
Sonnet now has rich attributes to actually match a 'high protein
week' or 'comfort food' or 'quick' preference against, instead of
guessing from titles.
Endpoints:
- /enrich-recipes UI page (progress bar + start + force re-enrich +
cancel; no review/approve since meta is additive)
- /api/recipes/enrich-{start,status,cancel} session-authed
- /api/admin/recipes/enrich-start bearer-authed for kayos kick-off
Cost (one-time): ~5s/recipe × 226 = ~20 min walk. Subsequent runs
only process new/changed recipes.
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| cauldron | ||
| scripts | ||
| tests | ||
| .env.example | ||
| .gitignore | ||
| compose.yml | ||
| Dockerfile | ||
| LICENSE | ||
| README.md | ||
| requirements.txt | ||
cauldron
Mealie-backed AI meal planner + shopping list for the family. LAN-only,
internal tool. Mealie at recipes.sulkta.com is the source of truth for
recipes / meal plans / shopping lists; cauldron is the AI layer + Abby's
branded UI on top.
Status
v0.1 — backend bones (current). Ingredient sterilizer endpoint working. No UI yet; bearer-auth API only. Frontend + Authentik OIDC arrives in v0.2. Native Kotlin Android in v0.5.
Surface (v0.1)
GET /healthz liveness + clawdforge upstream
GET /api/recipes list Mealie recipes (paginated)
POST /api/sterilize/preview/<slug> dry-run AI parse, return proposals
POST /api/sterilize/apply/<slug> write parses back to Mealie
All routes except /healthz require Authorization: Bearer <ADMIN_BEARER>.
Architecture
Abby's phone (later: Kotlin app)
│
▼
cauldron (Flask, port 7790, LAN-only)
├─ Mealie API client ─── recipes.sulkta.com (source of truth)
├─ clawdforge client ─── 192.168.0.5:8800 (claude -p runner)
└─ Authentik OIDC (v0.2)
cauldron does NOT hold its own database in v0.1 — all state lives in Mealie. A small Postgres/MariaDB schema lands in v0.2 for Abby-specific prefs + chat history.
Ingredient sterilizer
Mealie's CRF parser is mediocre. Cobb's hand-typed recipes have lots of free-form quantity strings ("about 2 cups cooked white rice", "1 small handful kale", "a pinch of salt") that don't aggregate cleanly into a shopping list.
The sterilizer batches all ingredients of one recipe into a single Sonnet call (via clawdforge), gets back parallel structured parses, then on apply links each parse to existing Mealie food/unit records (creating any missing by name) and PUTs the recipe back.
Preview is non-destructive — review proposals before apply.
# Dry-run preview
curl -sS -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer $ADMIN_BEARER" \
http://192.168.0.5:7790/api/sterilize/preview/spaghetti-bolognese | jq .
# Apply (creates missing foods/units by default)
curl -sS -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer $ADMIN_BEARER" \
http://192.168.0.5:7790/api/sterilize/apply/spaghetti-bolognese | jq .
Deploy
ssh lucycd /mnt/user/appdata && git clone <gitea-url> cauldron && cd cauldron/build(or wherever the deploy convention lands)- Drop
.envat/mnt/cache/appdata/secrets/cauldron.env(chmod 600 root:root)CLAWDFORGE_TOKENis already populated by the bootstrap (seememory/2026-04-28.md)MEALIE_API_TOKEN— mint atrecipes.sulkta.com→ user → API tokensADMIN_BEARER— pick 32 bytes of entropySECRET_KEY— 32 bytes for Flask sessions
docker compose up -d --build- Smoke:
curl http://192.168.0.5:7790/healthz
Roadmap
- v0.1 ✓ — sterilizer backend + Flask shell
- v0.2 — Authentik OIDC, Abby-branded web UI, palette CSS, postgres for prefs
- v0.3 — meal plan generator (week → Mealie meal plan write)
- v0.4 — shopping list aggregator (read meal plan → consolidated grocery list)
- v0.5 — native Kotlin + Compose Android app (read-only shopping list + plan view)
Repo layout
cauldron/
├─ cauldron/
│ ├─ config.py env-driven config
│ ├─ forge.py clawdforge HTTP client
│ ├─ mealie.py Mealie API client
│ ├─ sterilizer.py ingredient parse + apply pipeline
│ └─ server.py Flask app
├─ Dockerfile
├─ compose.yml
├─ requirements.txt
└─ .env.example