Mealie-backed AI meal planner + shopping list for the family
Kayos
6bcf79e5dc
Three improvements driven by Cobb's review of the fan-out output:
1. Recipe context. _parse_batch now accepts an optional recipe_context
dict carrying recipe_name, recipe_description, and recipe_steps.
preview_recipe builds the context from the Mealie recipe and passes
it through. The Sonnet prompt has new USE RECIPE CONTEXT WHEN
AMBIGUOUS rules: "1 cup flour" is ambiguous (AP / bread / cake);
the cooking steps usually disambiguate ("knead until elastic" →
bread flour, "sift with cocoa powder" + cake recipe → cake flour).
Step text capped to 3000 chars so the user prompt stays modest;
defaults to all-purpose flour when steps don't disambiguate.
Brand/style hints in the description carry through too.
2. Spell + grammar cleanup. New SPELL/GRAMMAR CLEANUP rules in the
prompt: silently fix typos in food and note ("tomatos" → "tomatoes",
"chopped finly" → "chopped finely", "heavy cram" → "heavy cream").
Normalize spacing. Critically: preserve EVERY semantic value —
numeric quantities verbatim, every prep state, brand, color. When
uncertain whether something is a typo or intentional ("yellow
squash" is a real food, not a typo), keep it. Original strings
stay in originalText for audit / rollback.
3. Defensive food.id preservation in apply_recipe. Three new safeguards
protect against Sonnet hallucinations dropping live recipe data:
a) If Sonnet returns a single all-null parsed item but the original
Mealie row had a real food.id, pass the original through
verbatim. (Sonnet probably parse-failed; never blank a real link.)
b) When Sonnet returns a food name that we can't resolve in Mealie's
catalog AND the original had a food.id, preserve the original
link rather than emit food=null.
c) When Sonnet explicitly returns food=null on the first child of
an ingredient that originally had a food.id, treat that as a
misread and preserve the original. Real section headers — where
the original was ALREADY foodless — still pass through cleanly.
Net effect: no apply path can drop a recipe's existing food
reference. Sonnet can ADD food links (good), CHANGE them (good),
or fail to parse (we keep what was there). It cannot remove them.
The is_new_food field also benefits from recipe context — Sonnet has
more evidence to set is_new_food=false (matched a known canonical)
when the steps confirm the ingredient identity.
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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