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 record, 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 record, 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 record, 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 record, which lives at Data/Food Spend in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• The This week's food dashboard reads from the record and shows, at a glance: the week · the list · items on the list · food spend, month by month · favourites you haven't cooked lately · the recipe box · 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.

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 tick by telling Sage: "got the milk", "we've got rice already". The marks are the record, not a checkbox.
• 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.
• Mention what the shop cost as you unpack — "big shop, £84" — and the spend line draws itself month by month. 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. Every Sunday plan gets quieter and closer to right.

Make it yours

Nothing here is fixed. The pieces are ordinary agents, routines, records 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.

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. One quick panel settles the shape 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. Then you name the meals that actually get made — 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 about what's already in the cupboard, and never inventing an ingredient or a quantity a recipe didn't give.
3. Skip the conversation and the door quietly stays open: until a meal is planned, the kit page, the board and Sage's chat keep the offer ready. The first planned meal, however it arrives, closes it.
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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