This turns photos of recipes — handwritten cards, cookbook pages, screenshots — into clean, typed recipes, and prints them into a tidy, alphabetized binder. You take the pictures; it does the typing, the tidying, and the page layout.
You don't need to know how it works inside, and you never have to edit a file by hand. You run it by talking to it in plain language through Claude Code — you say what you have or what you want, and it does the rest, asking you whenever a real decision is yours to make.
The very first time, ask it to set things up (just say "set this up" or run
/configure). It will, in plain language, ask you three things:
- Where to watch for new photos — a folder you'll drop recipe pictures into.
- Where to keep your finished recipes — your growing collection.
- What printer to use — it lists the printers it finds and lets you pick one (it never chooses for you, so it can't accidentally print to a PDF file or the wrong machine).
That's the whole setup. You only do it once per computer. If you don't have a printer yet, you can finish without one — you'll still be able to add and type up recipes, and add the printer later.
Once it's set up, the rhythm is always the same:
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Add photos. Take pictures of the recipes you want, and tell it "here are some new recipes" (or drop them in your photos folder). It collects them and gets them into a form it can read — including iPhone photos, which it converts automatically.
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It types them up. It reads each photo and writes a clean recipe — ingredients, amounts, and steps — one per recipe. Photos that are clear just work.
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It asks about anything unclear. If a photo is smudged, ambiguous, or leaves something out ("how many does this serve?"), it doesn't guess — it sets that recipe aside with a short list of questions for you. Just say "let's go through the questions" (or
/fix-clarifications): it shows you the original photo, asks each question in plain language, and you answer — "it's 1/4 cup" — and it fixes the recipe for you. You never open or edit anything. A recipe with open questions is held back from printing until you've settled them, so a clean page never hides a guess. -
It prints, after checking with you. Before anything goes to paper, it shows you what's about to print — how many recipes, their names, which are new versus reprints — and waits for your go-ahead. Printing is the one step it always confirms first, because paper and ink don't come back. You can say "yes," "just these few," or "stop."
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You file them. The pages come out stacked so they drop into the binder in alphabetical order, and it keeps a table of contents up to date as your collection grows.
If you'd rather not do this step by step, you can just say "run the whole thing"
(or /orchestrate) and it walks the loop end to end, stopping to check with you at the
points that matter.
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"What can I do right now?" — it looks at your collection and tells you, in plain terms, what's actually worth doing: recipes waiting on your answers, recipes ready to print, or "everything's printed and tidy — just add more when you like."
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"What should I cook for guests this weekend?" (or "compare these two," "plan a menu") — it reads your collection and gives advice. This only ever reads your recipes; it never changes them.
Plain language is the main way — describe what you have or what you want, and it figures out which part of itself to use. If you prefer shortcuts, these do the same things:
| You want to… | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Set up this computer | /configure |
| Type up new photos | /transcribe |
| Answer the questions on held-back recipes | /fix-clarifications |
| Print new recipes | /print-hardware |
| Do the whole loop | /orchestrate |
| Get recipe advice | /recipe-advisor |
Your recipes are kept as ordinary plain-text files in the folder you chose, so they're yours — readable and portable, not locked inside this tool.
It tries to explain problems in plain language and fix them for you where it can — an empty photos folder, a photo it can't read, a printer that isn't set up yet. If it ever says it isn't configured, just ask it to set things up again; re-running setup only changes what you tell it to and leaves the rest alone.