CookDex docs
CookDex is a web UI for keeping a self-hosted Mealie recipe library clean, searchable, and well organized.
It helps you import recipes, clean messy scraper results, keep categories and tags consistent, schedule maintenance jobs, and review library health without living in the command line.
A clean library also makes native Mealie clients better. Forked, also from Knownframe, turns your recipes into swipe-based discovery, meal plans, and one persistent shopping list on your iPhone. Its roadmap and feature requests are at Knownframe/forked-for-mealie.
About CookDex has a short overview of the project.
What it actually does
Section titled “What it actually does”Recipes scraped from the web arrive with the site’s SEO baggage attached. CookDex strips it back to the recipe:
| Imported as | CookDex makes it |
|---|---|
instant-pot-beef-stew-recipe |
Instant Pot Beef Stew |
grandmas-old-fashioned-apple-pie-recipe |
Grandmas Old Fashioned Apple Pie |
bbq-pulled-pork-sandwiches |
BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwiches |
It also finds the entries that are not recipes at all. The junk filter sorts them into nine categories — how-to articles, listicles, digest posts, utility pages, placeholder instructions, failed scrapes, recipes with no ingredients, and garbled scrapes — so you can review a category at a time instead of one recipe at a time.
Every cleanup task previews its changes first. Nothing is written until you turn preview off, and destructive options additionally require an owner policy unlock.
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Who it is for
Section titled “Who it is for”CookDex is for people who already run Mealie and want help with the maintenance work that builds up over time:
- Recipes imported from many sites with inconsistent names, tags, and ingredients
- Duplicate foods, units, categories, tags, labels, or tools
- Recipes that need bulk cleanup after a large import
- Tags, categories, cookbooks and other organizers that have drifted into near-duplicates
- A repeatable way to run backups, audits, cleanup, and organization tasks
Most tasks start in preview mode, so you can inspect what CookDex would do before allowing live changes.
Requirements
Section titled “Requirements”- A running Mealie instance (v3.28.0 is the currently certified version) and an API token from your Mealie user profile
- Docker and Docker Compose
- Roughly 500 MB of disk for the image, plus persistent volumes for state, logs, and reports
Optional: an AI provider key (OpenAI, Anthropic, or a local Ollama) for AI-assisted categorization, and direct Postgres access for faster bulk operations. Neither is required — rule-based categorization and the Mealie API path work on their own.
What else you can do
Section titled “What else you can do”CookDex includes workflows for:
- Library cleanup: remove duplicate URLs, filter junk pages, normalize names, and repair slugs
- Ingredient parsing: convert raw ingredient lines into structured Mealie foods, units, and quantities
- Organize: edit tags, categories, tools, cookbooks, food labels, foods and units directly in Mealie, merge near-duplicates, and import or export the whole taxonomy as JSON
- Recipe organization: tag and categorize recipes with rules first, then optional AI
- Maintenance scheduling: run tasks once or on an interval
- Backups and audits: create Mealie backups and track recipe quality over time
Optional AI providers can help with categorization and parser fallback. Rule-based categorization works without any AI key.
Every job works through Mealie’s API. On large libraries you can also give CookDex a database connection string in Settings, which makes the heavy jobs much faster; jobs use it on their own and fall back to the API when it can’t be reached.
Next steps
Section titled “Next steps”- Install: the compose file, volumes, image tags and updates
- Getting started: first login, connecting Mealie, and a first safe run
- Tasks and scheduling: every task’s options, automations and safety policies
- Troubleshooting
Getting help
Section titled “Getting help”- The Help page inside CookDex documents every task and setting in place.
- Bugs and feature requests: open an issue.
- CookDex is AGPL-3.0 and contributions are welcome; see CONTRIBUTING.md.
CookDex is free and built in my spare time. If it saves you time, sponsoring on GitHub helps cover hosting and the test Mealie instance every release is checked against. One-time tips are welcome too.