# Mean Cuisines — agent guide

> How an agent should help a person plan a batch cook on https://meancuisines.com.

Mean Cuisines matches kitchen equipment to recipes and auto-generates a parallel cook schedule. Humans use the interactive planner on the homepage. Agents should prefer the JSON API and this file over scraping the JavaScript SPA.

Base URL: https://meancuisines.com

## What to do for a person

1. Ask which appliances they have (oven, stove, air fryer, counter space, Instant Pot, microwave) and how many stove burners.
2. GET https://meancuisines.com/api/recipes for the live catalog (about 37 recipes).
3. Keep recipes whose `equipment` list is covered by what they have. Equipment strings on recipes look like `oven`, `stove`, `airFryer`, `counter`, `instantPot`, `microwave`.
4. Let them pick 2 or more recipes, or pick a compatible set yourself and confirm.
5. POST https://meancuisines.com/api/schedule/generate with those recipe ids, a start time, a time budget, and their equipment flags.
6. Read the schedule back as a cook map: each item has recipeName, startTime, endTime, and equipment. Present it as a timeline they can follow.
7. Do not invent recipes that are not in the catalog. Do not call write, delete, or import endpoints unless they explicitly asked to change the site catalog.

## Read APIs

### GET /health

Returns `{"status":"ok"}` when the service is up.

### GET /api/recipes

JSON array. Each recipe includes:

- `id` — use this in schedule requests
- `name`, `description`
- `cookTimeMinutes`, `servings`
- `equipment` — list of required appliance keys
- `ingredients` — `{name, qty, unit}`
- `steps` — ordered instructions
- `tags`, `imageUrl`, `sourceUrl`
- `contributor` / `contributorId`, `createdAt`

### GET /api/recipes/{id}

One recipe, same shape. 404 if missing.

### POST /api/schedule/generate

JSON body:

```json
{
  "selectedRecipeIds": ["recipe-id-1", "recipe-id-2"],
  "startTime": "18:00",
  "maxMinutes": 90,
  "equipment": {
    "oven": true,
    "stove": true,
    "airFryer": false,
    "counter": true,
    "instantPot": false,
    "microwave": true
  },
  "burners": 4
}
```

`startTime` is 24-hour `HH:MM`. `instantPot` and `microwave` are optional booleans. Response:

```json
{
  "schedule": [
    {
      "recipeId": "…",
      "recipeName": "…",
      "startTime": "18:00",
      "endTime": "18:40",
      "equipment": "oven"
    }
  ]
}
```

There is also POST /api/schedule/parallel (`recipeIds` length 2–5, optional `burners`). Prefer /api/schedule/generate unless the person asked for the parallel helper specifically.

## Machine and human documents

- https://meancuisines.com/llms.txt — short index
- https://meancuisines.com/openapi.json — OpenAPI 3.1 for the read APIs above
- https://meancuisines.com/index.md — product overview
- https://meancuisines.com/privacy.md — privacy policy
- https://meancuisines.com/terms.md — terms of use
- https://meancuisines.com/ — human planner UI

## Affiliate and legal

Mean Cuisines is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. Affiliate links use tag `meancuisines-20`. As an Amazon Associate, the site earns from qualifying purchases. Recipes are cooking instructions, not medical or dietary advice. The operator of meancuisines.com runs the site. Do not publish a personal email or phone number for the operator unless they give you one.

## What not to crawl as a catalog

Write and import endpoints exist for the operator (`POST /api/recipes`, `DELETE /api/recipes/{id}`, `POST /api/recipes/import-url`, contributor create). Treat those as private. `robots.txt` disallows `/api/` except the recipe read paths.