Meals & Groceries

How it works

The mechanics of this kit, plainly — what runs and when, where the data lands, and what you look at.

• Week planner runs sundays · 5pm and keeps the This week's food dashboard fresh. Sunday evening — the coming week planned from your recipe box, with its list built.
• What is captured lands in the Recipe box dataset, which lives at Data/Recipe Box in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Meal plan dataset, which lives at Data/Meal Plan in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Grocery list dataset, which lives at Data/Grocery List in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Food spend dataset, which lives at Data/Food Spend in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Kitchen stock dataset, which lives at Data/Kitchen Stock in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Recipe methods dataset, which lives at Data/Recipe Methods in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• The This week's food dashboard reads from the dataset and shows, at a glance: the week · the list · what's in, soonest use-by first · favourites you haven't cooked lately · cook it step by step · food spend, month by month · food budget, this month · items on the list · how this board works.

The wiring, in one breath: Meal capture writes to Meal plan · Meal capture files into Recipe box · Meal capture logs into Food spend · Meal plan shown by This week's food · This week's food kept fresh by Week planner · Week planner run by Sage · Sage holds Meal capture · Sage holds List builder · List builder writes to Grocery list · Sage holds Recipes and methods · Sage holds Cupboard and freezer · Sage holds Menus for guests · Recipes and methods writes to Recipe methods · Cupboard and freezer keeps Kitchen stock.

Getting the most from it

A kit earns its place when it changes what you look at and what you say, not when it is installed. This is the rhythm that makes it pay.

• Say the plan the way you'd say it across the kitchen — "chilli Thursday, quick pasta Friday" — and Meal capture puts it on the calendar. A swap is the same sentence about the same night.
• Read The week on Sunday evening, after the Week planner has filled the empty nights from your recipe box and built the list. Change anything by replying to its card.
• Shop from The list on the board — it is grouped by aisle — and tap each item as it goes in the trolley. Telling Sage "got the milk" or "we've got rice already" does the same.
• Name a recipe once with what goes in it and the List builder never has to ask again. A dish with nothing on its row gets one question, never a guess.
• Paste a recipe link, or read out a card, and Recipes and methods files it with its method as short steps in Sage's own words. "Cook it step by step" on the board then takes you through it a step at a time, with a note for next time. A page it cannot read is kept as a link, never filled in from guesswork.
• Mention leftovers and what goes in the freezer as it happens: "two portions of curry left", "four of chilli frozen". The Sunday plan names what wants using first, the list leaves off what you already have, and What's in shows the soonest use-by at the top: tick a thing when it is eaten.
• Mention what the shop cost as you unpack — "big shop, $84" — and the spend line draws itself month by month. Give Sage a monthly food budget and the Sunday plan sets the budget bar against it. Look at it once a month, not once a week.
• Tell Sage the standing facts: who's home which nights, the quick nights, anyone's lines, the staples, and who at the table is allergic to or won't eat what. Every planned dish is checked against what its recipe says goes in it; a packet's own label still settles an allergy. Every Sunday plan gets quieter and closer to right.
• Having people over? Say who is coming and when, and Menus for guests plans the meal from your own recipes, puts it on the calendar, scales the list to the table and keeps a note with an order of work for the day.

Make it yours

Nothing here is fixed. The pieces are ordinary agents, routines, datasets and dashboards, so anything you know about shaping those applies. Retire whatever earns nothing.

Things people usually change first

Say any of these in chat, or edit them on the kit’s page in the app.

• Which nights are quick nights, and who cooks when.
• When the Sunday plan arrives, or turning it off and just keeping the calendar and the list.
• The staples that go on every list, and how the shop is sectioned.
• Whether Sage plans dinners only, or lunches and breakfasts too.
• The food budget, monthly or weekly, or none at all.
• Whether a frozen batch may go on a quick night, and how many usually eat.

Your first run

Installing starts a short setup conversation — not a form. Answer roughly, correct later.

1. Installing ends with "Meet Sage" — a short conversation, not a form. Before it asks you anything, Sage looks at what you have already told 1Presence and at any recipes saved in your vault, and offers what it finds for you to confirm. One quick panel then settles whatever is left of the household: how many eat at home most nights, which nights need something quick, anyone's lines, when the big shop tends to happen. You name any meals still missing — five or six is plenty — and each one lands in the recipe box as you say it.
2. From those, Sage plans the rest of this week — a dinner a night, the quick ones on the quick nights — writes it to the calendar, and builds the list: asking once what goes in any dish with nothing on its row, asking once about what's already in the cupboard, and never inventing an ingredient or a quantity a recipe didn't give.
3. Skip the conversation, or stop part-way, and the door quietly stays open: until your dishes are in the box and a dinner is planned, whatever is still missing waits on the kit page with a way back to Sage, and Sage offers it once the next time you talk. Tell it a part does not apply to you, or that you have finished setting up, and it stops asking.
4. Every Sunday at five the Week planner fills the coming week's unplanned dinners from the recipe box — favourites you haven't had in a while first — builds the list, and leaves one card with the week in seven lines. Swap anything by replying. If the recipe box is still empty when Sunday comes, it plans nothing and simply invites you to name a few meals instead.

Watch the first pass, then tell it what you would have done differently — that correction teaches it more than any setup could.

The essentials

Learning, preferences and run costs work the same in every kit — so they are covered once, in the Kits guide.

Living with a Kit — the Kits guide →

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