cookcli 0.25.0

A command-line interface for managing and working with Cooklang recipes
Documentation

CookCLI

Test License: MIT GitHub release (latest by date) GitHub Stars

Command line tools for working with Cooklang recipes.

🎯 Quick Install

# macOS/Linux (Homebrew)
brew install cookcli

# Download binary (all platforms)
# Visit: https://github.com/cooklang/CookCLI/releases

📋 Table of Contents

📖 What is CookCLI?

CookCLI provides a suite of commands to create shopping lists, reports and maintain recipes. We've built it to be simple and useful for automating your cooking and shopping routine with existing UNIX command line and scripting tools. It can also function as a webserver for your recipes, making them browsable on any device with a web browser.

Try the web interface live at demo.cooklang.org

✨ Features

  • 🔧 UNIX Philosophy - Integrate your Cooklang recipes with other tools
  • 📝 Meal Planning - Script meal planning and shopping
  • 📊 Reports - Evaluate your recipes or menus with custom reports
  • 🌐 Web Interface - Browse recipes from any device
  • 🛒 Smart Shopping - Generate organized shopping lists
  • 🔍 Recipe Search - Find recipes quickly
  • 📦 Pantry Tracking - Manage inventory and expiration dates

🚀 Getting Started

First, install CookCLI using one of the methods below. CookCLI comes with a few sample recipes to play with:

$ cook seed
$ cook recipe "Neapolitan Pizza.cook"

This displays the recipe in a human-readable format:

Neapolitan Pizza

source: https://www.stadlermade.com/how-to-pizza-dough/neapolitan/
servings: 6

Ingredients:
  semolina
  Pizza Dough              (recipe: Shared/Pizza Dough)     6 balls
  flour
  semolina
  San Marzano tomato sauce                                  5 tbsp
  basil leaves
  mozzarella cheese                                         100 grams

Cookware:
  outdoor oven
  spatula

Steps:
 1. Preheat your outdoor oven so it’s around 450/500°C (842/932°F).
     [-]
 2. Prepare your pizza toppings because from now on you wanna work fast.
    Sprinkle some semolina on your work surface.
     [semolina]
 ...

Create a shopping list from multiple recipes:

$ cook -v shopping-list "Neapolitan Pizza.cook" "./Breakfast/Easy Pancakes.cook""

Or start the web server to browse your recipes:

$ cook server --open
Listening on http://127.0.0.1:9080
Serving Web UI on http://localhost:9080
Serving recipe files from: "/Users/chefalexey/recipes"

📦 Installation

Download Binary

Download the latest release for your platform from the releases page and add it to your PATH.

macOS

Using Homebrew:

brew install cookcli

Install with Cargo

not working at the moment, re: https://github.com/cooklang/cookcli/issues/155#issuecomment-3239646168

If you have Rust installed:

cargo install cookcli

Build from Source

You'll need Rust and Node.js installed. Then:

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/cooklang/CookCLI.git
cd CookCLI

# Install frontend dependencies
npm install

# Build CSS (required for web UI)
npm run build-css

# Build the CLI with web UI
cargo build --release

# Binary will be at target/release/cook

Building without Self-Update

By default, CookCLI includes a self-update feature. To build without this feature (useful for CI/CD pipelines, package managers, or environments where auto-update is not desired):

# Build without self-update feature
cargo build --release --no-default-features

# This disables the 'self-update' feature flag while keeping all other functionality

Development Setup

For development with hot-reload of CSS changes:

# Install dependencies
npm install

# In one terminal, watch CSS changes
npm run watch-css

# In another terminal, run the development server
cargo run -- server ./seed

# Or use the Makefile
make dev_server  # Builds CSS and starts server

🛠 Commands

CookCLI follows the UNIX philosophy: each command does one thing well.

cook recipe

Parse and display recipe files. You can view them in different formats and scale quantities.

# View a recipe
cook recipe "Pasta Carbonara.cook"

# Scale a recipe to 2x
cook recipe "Pizza.cook:2"

# Output as JSON
cook recipe "Soup.cook" -f json

# Save as Markdown
cook recipe "Cake.cook" -f markdown > cake.md

cook shopping-list

Generate shopping lists from one or more recipes. Ingredients are automatically combined and organized by store section.

# Single recipe
cook shopping-list "Dinner.cook"

# Multiple recipes with scaling
cook shopping-list "Pasta.cook:3" "Salad.cook"

# All recipes in a directory
cook shopping-list *.cook

cook server

Run a web server to browse your recipes from any device.

# Start on localhost
cook server

# Allow access from other devices on your network
cook server --host

# Use a different port
cook server --port 8080

# Open browser immideately
cook server --open

cook search

Find recipes by searching through ingredients, instructions, and metadata.

# Search for recipes with chicken
cook search chicken

# Find quick recipes
cook search "30 minutes"

# Search in specific directory
cook search -b ~/recipes pasta

cook import

Import recipes from websites and convert them to Cooklang format. Requires OPENAI_API_KEY environment variable set.

# Import a recipe
cook import https://www.example.com/recipe > recipe.cook

# Import without conversion
cook import https://www.example.com/recipe --skip-conversion

cook doctor

Check your recipe collection for issues and maintain consistency.

# Validate all recipes and display parsing errors
cook doctor validate

# Check aisle configuration for shopping lists
cook doctor aisle

# Check pantry configuration
cook doctor pantry

# Run all checks
cook doctor

cook seed

Add sample recipes to explore Cooklang features.

# Add to current directory
cook seed

# Add to specific directory
cook seed ~/my-recipes

cook report

Generate custom outputs using templates (experimental feature).

# Generate a recipe card
cook report -t recipe-card.md.jinja recipe.cook

# Create nutrition label
cook report -t nutrition.html.jinja recipe.cook

cook pantry

Manage your pantry inventory, track low stock items, expiring ingredients, and find recipes you can make.

# Show items that are low or out of stock
cook pantry depleted

# Check expiring items in the next 7 days
cook pantry expiring

# Find recipes you can make with available ingredients
cook pantry recipes

# Include partial matches (recipes where most ingredients are available)
cook pantry recipes --partial --threshold 60

# Output in machine-readable formats
cook pantry -f json depleted
cook pantry -f yaml expiring --days 14

📚 Documentation

Detailed documentation for each command is available in the docs/ directory:

⚙️ Configuration

CookCLI looks for configuration files in:

  • ./config/ - in your recipe directory (highest priority)
  • ~/.config/cooklang/ - in your home directory (fallback)
  • ~/Library/Application Support/cook/ - on macOS (fallback)

Configuration files:

  • aisle.conf - Organizes ingredients by store section
  • pantry.conf - Tracks your ingredient inventory with quantities

Aisle Configuration (aisle.conf)

Organizes ingredients by store section for shopping lists. Items not in any category will appear under "Other".

[produce]
tomatoes|tomato
basil|basil leaves
garlic
onions

[dairy]
milk
cheese
yogurt
butter

[pantry]
flour
sugar
pasta
rice
olive oil

[meat]
chicken
beef
pork

[bakery]
bread
rolls

Pantry Configuration (pantry.conf)

Tracks your ingredient inventory with quantities, expiration dates, and low stock thresholds. Items in your pantry are excluded from shopping lists automatically.

[freezer]
ice_cream = "1%L"
frozen_peas = "500%g"
spinach = { bought = "05.05.2024", expire = "05.06.2024", quantity = "1%kg" }

[fridge]
milk = { expire = "10.05.2024", quantity = "2%L", low = "500%ml" }
cheese = { expire = "15.05.2024" }
butter = "250%g"

[pantry]
rice = { quantity = "5%kg", low = "1%kg" }
pasta = { quantity = "1%kg", low = "200%g" }
flour = { quantity = "5%kg", low = "1%kg" }
olive_oil = { quantity = "1%L", low = "250%ml" }
salt = "1%kg"

Pantry items can be specified in two formats:

  • Simple: item = "quantity"
  • Detailed: item = { quantity = "amount", expire = "date", bought = "date", low = "threshold" }

Attributes:

  • quantity - Current amount in stock
  • low - Threshold for low stock warnings (same units as quantity)
  • expire - Expiration date
  • bought - Purchase date

Items listed in your pantry will be automatically excluded from shopping lists, helping you track what you already have at home. Use cook pantry depleted to see low stock items and cook pantry expiring to check expiration dates.

Using Configuration Files

# Shopping list will organize by aisle and exclude pantry items
cook shopping-list "Pasta.cook"

# Check which ingredients aren't categorized
cook doctor aisle

# Use specific config directory
cook shopping-list "Recipe.cook" --aisle ./my-config/aisle.conf

# Example: Recipe calls for salt, pepper, chicken, tomatoes
# With pantry.conf containing salt and rice in your inventory:
# Shopping list will only show: pepper, chicken, tomatoes

💡 Tips

Logging

CookCLI has different level of logging. You can pass -v to show info messages, -vv for debug and -vvv for trace. Use it if you want to submit bug report because it will help us to better understand what's going on.

Scaling Recipes

Use the : notation to scale any recipe:

cook recipe "Pizza.cook:2"              # Double
cook shopping-list "Pasta.cook:0.5"     # Half

Combining with UNIX Tools

CookCLI works great with pipes and standard tools:

# Find all recipes with chicken and create a shopping list
cook search chicken | xargs cook shopping-list

# Convert all recipes to Markdown
for r in *.cook; do
  cook recipe "$r" -f markdown > "docs/${r%.cook}.md"
done

⭐ Give us a star

Why not? It will help more people discover this tool and Cooklang.

🤝 Contributing

We welcome contributions! See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

Areas where we'd love help:

  • Bug fixes and testing
  • Documentation improvements
  • New features
  • Recipe collections
  • Translations
  • UI/UX improvements

👥 Contributors

Thanks to all the people who have contributed to CookCLI!

📄 License

MIT License. See LICENSE for details.

Some source files include code from cooklang-chef, also under MIT license.

🔗 Links

💬 Support