Cookwala
The open standard for cooking safely: people, kitchens and robots.
A Cookwala recipe says three things a machine can check: what to make, when it's done, and what must never happen. Devices dry-run a recipe before heating anything and refuse rather than guess; safety limits are enforced on the device and cannot be raised by any recipe, agent or message; records are hashed and signed; AI agents act only under a signed mandate and treat all text as data. A Humanitarian Profile lets food banks rescue surplus food safely by SMS and spreadsheet, with no personal data. A Household Context Profile keeps a home's facts at home.
Mission: help end hunger, make people healthier, and put robots to work for people. Hunger has many causes; Cookwala's part is real and partial: less waste, safer rescue, cheaper and healthier meals, machines that can feed people who cannot cook for themselves, and food organizations acting as one network. Evidence, with labels, is in docs/IMPACT.md.
Cookwala started as "the world's first and largest robot cooking recipes index and CLI", from one family's Egyptian recipes on fifi.cooking. The index and the CLI are here; "first" and "largest" were the original ambition, not claims; not a claim. Everything is open, royalty-free, model-neutral and device-neutral.
Status: Core 0.2 is a draft under public review; everything else is a draft or experimental profile. Live at cookwala.ai. Nothing is deployed in the field yet.
Feature status (Core 0.2, MCP server 0.3.0)
| Feature | Status | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Recipe format & schemas | ✅ Shipping | 2,439 recipes (2,430 imported from fifi.cooking at V0, including 50 Cooking with Kids recipes, 9 at V1), names in 29 languages |
| Dry-run (device compatibility) | ✅ Shipping | Python & TypeScript SDKs produce identical results |
| Temperature envelope validation | ✅ Shipping | Safety limits enforced on device |
| Python SDK | ✅ Shipping | CLI + library (all Core operations) |
| TypeScript SDK | ✅ Shipping | MCP server + library (all Core operations) |
| Allergen data | 🔧 Analysis, not certification | The 2,380 recipes fifi.cooking analysed carry its whole-word allergen analysis (2,056 contain allergens, 254 none found, 70 need label checks); the 50 Cooking with Kids recipes carry the authors' declared allergens; screens, not guarantees; every fifi.cooking recipe also has a gluten status and a lactose status (safety.x-gluten, safety.x-lactose), used by diet=gluten_free and diet=lactose_free (export notes) |
MCP server @cookwala/mcp | ✅ Published | 0.3.0 on npm (npx -y @cookwala/mcp), listed in the MCP Registry as ai.cookwala/cookwala; 24 read-only tools (16 in 0.2.0, 24 from 0.3.0), try it in five minutes; optional token-protected hosted endpoint mcp.cookwala.ai/mcp for mcprush tracking; open recipe REST API at mcp.cookwala.ai/api |
| Search | 🔧 Partial | Static /v1/search is documented in OpenAPI but not deployed; search is served by the open REST API (), the MCP tool and the CLI |
Start here
| You want to… | Go to |
|---|---|
| See it work in 2 minutes | Live dry run · cookwala dryrun examples/koshari.cookwala.json --device examples/capabilities/robot-arm.json |
| Read the standard | docs/CORE.md (normative) · whitepaper · RFCs |
| Browse 2,439 recipes, or use the SDK in your language | Recipe index (9 at V1, 2,430 imported from fifi.cooking at V0 (22 cuisines, and 50 Cooking with Kids recipes), names in 29 languages, text in Arabic and English) · SDK and 100 scenarios in Python, TypeScript, JavaScript, Go, Rust, Java, Kotlin, C#, Swift, C++, Ruby, PHP and curl · the site in six languages (English and Arabic by hand; French, Spanish, German and Portuguese by machine, labelled) |
| Build a device, hub or agent | Quickstart · Robots, ROS 2, datasets · reference hub · MCP server for AI agents (, ) · · · |
Checks
python -m venv .venv && .venv/bin/pip install jsonschema pyyaml graphql-core cryptography
.venv/bin/python tools/validate_specs.py # schemas, examples, vocabularies, facet registry, APIs
.venv/bin/python tools/run_conformance.py # 137 vectors (Core and profiles); --report writes a ConformanceReport
.venv/bin/pip install -e sdk/python # the `cookwala` command used in the table above
node sim/run.mjs # the four simulators
bash tools/build_site.sh _site # the website
A recipe step, the Cookwala way
{
"id": "n11", "op": "cw.op.simmer", "inputs": ["eggs_in_wells"], "output": "shakshuka",
"params": { "heat": "low", "lid": "on" },
"until": { "all": [ { "vision": "cw.sense.egg_whites_set" },
{ "sensor": "cw.sense.core_temp", "target": "egg_white", "gte": 63, "optional": true } ],
"minTime": "PT5M", "maxTime": "PT10M" },
"onTimeout": "ask_human", "ccp": "ccp_eggs", "hazards": ["hz_steam"], "attention": "monitor"
}
Backlog
Proposed changes, ideas from outside feedback and open questions, with an id per item for anyone to pick up or argue with: BACKLOG.md.
Licenses
- Schemas, tools, SDKs, reference implementations: Apache-2.0
- Specification text and docs: CC BY 4.0 for reuse of the text; participation, contributions and patent terms under the Community Specification License 1.0 (SCOPE.md, NOTICES.md, contributor agreement)
- Vocabularies, bindings, policy packs: CC0 1.0
- Recipe data: CC BY 4.0 where marked in each document's
licensefield; collections whose rights are not yet confirmed carryLicenseRef-source-creditedand publish structured facts only (LICENSES/LicenseRef-source-credited.md) - Patent pledge: PATENTS.md
Cookwala is started and operated by fifi.cooking. fifi.cooking is open source too (MIT License): a static React, TypeScript, Vite and Tailwind CSS site on GitHub Pages, with native apps for Android, iPhone and iPad, Apple TV, Fire TV and Samsung TV that read its open JSON files. How it is built. Cookwala data is provided without warranty. Device makers and operators are responsible for safe execution and for complying with local law.