YesChef/ideas.md

Ideas

Speculative features and explorations — not committed, not scheduled. Captured here so we don't lose them. Items graduate to BACKLOG.md when there's appetite to do them.

Recipe import from URL

• Most recipe sites publish JSON-LD Recipe schema.org markup. Parsing it gives ingredients, steps, yield, prep/cook time, and an image — most of what you'd want in our recipe model.
• Flow: user pastes URL → backend fetches the page → extracts JSON-LD → maps to our Recipe + RecipeIngredient shape, mapping ingredient names through the typeahead so they land with ProductId where possible → user reviews and saves.
• High-leverage for a recipe app — a single paste replaces 5–10 minutes of manual entry.
• Considerations: which sites to support (start with anything that publishes valid schema.org), failure handling for paywalled / JS-rendered pages, abuse prevention (don't make us a free URL fetcher).

Per-product images

• Big typeahead UX win when a family has multiple "milk" entries (whole, 2%, oat). A small thumbnail in the dropdown disambiguates instantly.
• Storage: object store (Azure Blob / S3-compatible). Curated catalog ships with one image per product; family-uploaded products can attach their own.
• Affects catalog schema design — add an ImageUrl (or ImageId if we want a separate Images table) to Product and FamilyProduct so we don't have to migrate later.

Item-level notes / "running low"

• "Get the organic kind", "the one in the green bag", "make sure it's gluten-free" — instructions that don't fit any existing field.
• Add a Note (nullable string) to ShoppingListItem. Render as a subtle subtitle under the item name.
• Adjacent: a "running low" mode where checking an item in the pantry (or the kitchen, or a recurring-list view) auto-drops it onto the next shopping list. Out of scope for now (pantry tracking is parked).

Meal planning + auto-generated lists

• Calendar view: assign recipes to days of the week. Generate one consolidated shopping list for the week with quantities aggregated across recipes (e.g., 3 recipes calling for onions → "3 onions" on the list).
• Natural extension of the "add recipe to shopping list" flow once that's solid.
• Considerations: how aggressive the aggregation is (require same ProductId AND same UnitOfMeasureId? what about recipe ingredients without ProductId?), how to handle "I already have onions" (intersects with the parked pantry concept).
• v2 territory.

Observability

• Currently no structured logging strategy, no metrics, no alerting. The deferred SignalR-versioning memory is the only ops-adjacent item.
• Likely path when it matters: structured JSON logs via Serilog, metrics via OpenTelemetry exporting to a hosted backend (Grafana Cloud or similar low-cost option), basic alerts on error rate and latency.
• Not urgent until the app has more than one family using it in earnest.