Getting started with CookDex

This starts where Install ends, with the container running.

1. Open https://localhost:4820/cookdex and accept the self-signed certificate warning.

2. Create your admin account. On first visit, the setup screen prompts you for one. Choose a username and a strong password (at least 8 characters, mixed case, with a digit).

3. In Mealie, create an API token from your user profile under API Tokens. Copy the token when Mealie shows it; it is only shown once.

4. In CookDex, go to Settings and enter:

   • Mealie Server URL: the address for your Mealie instance plus /api, such as http://mealie:9000/api.
   • Mealie API Key: the token from step 3.

5. Click Test Mealie to verify. The dashboard shows a banner until both values are set.

Start with a read-only check:

1. Open Tasks.
2. Select Health Check.
3. Leave the default scopes enabled.
4. Click Run and review the log.

To preview a cleanup task, pick ingredient-parse, keep dry_run=true, queue the run and inspect the logs. For cleanup tasks, keep Preview Run selected until the log shows exactly what you expect. CookDex will ask for an owner-level policy unlock before dangerous live changes.

Tasks runs, schedules and monitors every task (see Scheduling).

Recipe Sources manages the sites the Recipe Dredger crawls for new recipes.

Recipe Organization is where you draft, validate and publish taxonomy changes (categories, tags, cookbooks, labels, tools and unit aliases) before syncing them to Mealie in Tasks (see Taxonomy tasks).