Help & Reference

Mirabel, your kitchen helper

Mirabel is the in-app assistant — a warm, cheerful home cook who’s happy to explain a French technique and just as happy when dinner is a PB&J. She answers your questions about Mirepoix and gives light cooking advice. She can also find your recipes by name, draft a recipe you paste, link, or photograph, propose edits to a recipe you’ve saved, and offer to add to your shopping list or your Menu. She never changes your kitchen on her own — nothing changes until you tap, apply, or save it yourself. You’ll hear her voice inside her panel; the rest of Mirepoix keeps its plain, matter-of-fact tone.

Where to find her

On a wide screen, Mirabel waits in the bottom-right corner — tap her to open her panel. On a narrow screen, where space is tight, she moves to the top-right corner of the screen instead. Either way, look for the round button with her picture, and tap it to open her panel. Her panel opens with a few starters you can tap — Add a recipe begins the guided add-a-recipe interview, What can you help with? lists what she does, and a sample cooking question shows the kind of thing you can ask. Or type your own in the Message Mirabel box. The box grows as you type, so a longer note stays easy to read. On a computer, press Enter to send and Shift+Enter to start a new line. On a phone or tablet, Return starts a new line — tap the send arrow (↑) to send.

On a wide screen, tap the ⤢ in her header to widen her panel into two panes — your conversation on the left, her workshop on the right. Tap it again to shrink back to the single column. She remembers your choice on that device the next time you open her. See Her workshop below.

Her reply appears as she writes it. A recipe draft or a set of choices lands just below her words, as one piece. While she’s answering, the send arrow (↑) turns into a stop button (⏹). Tap it to end her answer early and keep what she’s said so far. If you scroll up to read while she’s still going, the view stays put — tap the ↓ button that appears to jump back to her latest. To keep a reply, tap the copy button (⧉) on it — it appears when you point at the reply on a computer, and stays faintly visible on a phone or tablet. If your browser blocks the copy, a small box appears with the text ready to select yourself. And if a reply lands while her panel is closed, a small dot marks her button so you know to look — it clears the moment you open her.

Mirabel’s panel is always there for a kitchen member, whether or not the deployment has an Anthropic API key configured. The key decides which of her abilities are live, not whether she shows up. Without one, the guided add-a-recipe interview still imports from a website, pasted text, or a file, and the meal suggestions still work — but her chat answers, photo import, and the bookmarklet need the key, as does her in-panel offer to set the bookmarklet up. Sharing a link from an Android phone’s Share sheet still works without a key, though: the link lands in Mirepoix and comes back as a draft, read without AI. (That route isn’t available on iPhone or iPad at all — see Import from your browser or by sharing.) On mirepoix.recipes the operator sets it, so everything’s on; a self-hosted deployment without a key has the rest. When an ability needs the key and it isn’t set, Mirabel tells you she isn’t available for that rather than leaving you guessing.

Her workshop

The workshop is the other half of her panel. It’s where Mirabel puts what she’s working on with you, so it doesn’t scroll away up the conversation. Today that’s a recipe draft you’re bringing in, a proposed edit to one you’ve saved, what a saved recipe still needs from the store, and your kitchen’s cooking preferences.

On a wide screen, tap the ⤢ in her header to open the workshop beside the chat. On a narrow screen her panel fills the screen and the workshop is a tab instead — Chat and Workshop sit under her name. Tap Workshop to switch, Chat to come back; from a keyboard, tab to them and use ← and →. On a narrow screen, opening her panel always starts you on Chat.

The ⚒ button in her header is the other way in. On a wide screen it widens the panel and shows the workshop; on a narrow screen it switches to the Workshop tab. Once the workshop is showing beside the chat, the button steps aside — the pane is right there. On a narrow screen it stays put and turns red while Workshop is the tab you’re on.

When she puts something new in the workshop while you’re looking elsewhere, a small dot marks the way in — on the ⚒ button in her header, and on the Workshop tab too on a narrow screen. Opening the workshop clears the dot and shows you what was waiting, whichever way you get there: the ⚒ button, the Workshop tab, widening the panel with ⤢, or reopening a panel you’d left wide. If the workshop is already showing when she has something new, it appears there right away — no dot.

With nothing on the bench, the workshop says so, invites you to draft a recipe, and offers a button through to your kitchen preferences. Tap Clear conversation and the workshop empties along with the chat. If the workshop can’t load, it says so in place of the pane — try again in a moment. Once in a while a recipe draft won’t lay out there either, even though it’s still safe in the chat — she says so, and points you to Open in editor on its card instead. A proposed edit can hit the same snag; she says so there too, and the proposal is still safe in the conversation — ask her to redo it.

A recipe draft lands here as soon as you paste, link, or photograph one — the newest, if you bring in more than one. Tap Open in workshop on an earlier draft’s card in the chat to put that one here instead. It’s laid out the way a saved recipe would look: title, ingredients, and steps to check over. Tap Save to kitchen and the pane shows it as a link once it’s in. Tap Open in editor instead to review it on the full-page editor, the same one a new recipe uses.

If a recipe with that title is already in your kitchen, the pane doesn’t offer Save. It names the recipe that’s there and links to it instead — saving would write over it. The same refusal holds if someone in your kitchen saves under that title while you’re still looking at the pane.

A proposed edit lands here when you ask her to change a recipe you’ve already saved — see Edit a saved recipe. It’s laid out over the recipe’s own text, with her changes marked right on it: added text highlighted, removed text struck through — the same convention recipe history uses to show a change. Tap Apply changes to save it — it becomes the recipe’s newest version, recorded in its history and marked via Mirabel. Tap Open in editor instead to load her version onto the recipe’s edit page and adjust it yourself first. Tap Discard to clear it from the pane — the proposal itself stays safe in the conversation, so opening the workshop on it again brings it right back.

If the recipe’s changed since she read it, the pane says so instead of the marked-up body, and won’t let you apply. Ask her to redo the edit and she’ll work from what’s there now. If her change is already in the recipe, it says that instead, with nothing left to apply. And if the recipe she proposed the change for isn’t in your kitchen any more, it says that too.

A draft already on the bench stays there if you go on to ask about a change to a saved recipe. A note says those changes are in the conversation, not here.

What a recipe still needs lands here when you ask what one of your saved recipes takes to cook — see Ask what you still need for a recipe. It names the recipe, says how many of the ingredients it needs from the store you already have, and lists what’s left to buy. Anything you’re short of that’s already on your grocery list is named as left out, not offered again. Under that list sits one button — Add 3 items to your list, counting exactly what it just showed you — that puts the lot on your Groceries list. Ingredients the recipe marks optional gather below under Optional, if you want them:, and that button never adds them. When nothing’s missing, the pane says you already have everything the recipe needs from the store. When everything missing is already on your list, it says you’re set, names those items, and links you to the list. If the recipe has been deleted since she looked, it says that instead.

Kitchen preferences is the fourth thing the workshop holds — a look at what’s set, not a place to change it. It’s the same three settings as Cooking preferences on the Settings page: how many people you usually cook for, the diets your kitchen follows, and the ingredients you avoid. Under them, she notes that a kitchen owner can change them — either by asking her, or on the Settings page. Everyone in the kitchen sees the same read-only look; if nothing’s set yet, she says so there instead.

What she can help with

She works only with your own kitchen, and only when you ask. She reads your recipes, your Pantry, your Menu — including which recipes have spent time on it, which is what “forgotten favorites” is built from — your shopping list, and your kitchen’s cooking preferences. Nothing else in your kitchen, and nothing tied to your account. She can offer to add items to your shopping list and saved recipes to your Menu, but she can’t do either on her own — an offer waits for your tap. Everything else she only reads: she can’t change what your Pantry says is on hand, check an item off your list, or take anything off your Menu. And a draft becomes a recipe, and a proposed edit changes a recipe, only when you say so.

She knows which page you’re on

While you’re chatting, Mirabel knows which page you’re looking at — a recipe, your recipes list, the Menu, your Groceries, or your Pantry. She sees only the page’s type and title — and, on a recipe, its address — never what’s on the page. That’s enough to act on: while you’re viewing a recipe, ask her to edit it without naming it — “make this vegan” changes the one you’re looking at. It goes along with your message, and the Data and privacy page covers it.

What she remembers about your kitchen

What Mirabel remembers is exactly what’s saved under Cooking preferences in Settings — how many people you usually cook for, the diets your kitchen follows, and the ingredients you avoid. There’s no hidden profile behind it: that page is the whole of it, and an owner can change or clear it any time. A short summary goes along with every message you send her, so her suggestions and drafts fit your kitchen. It doesn’t limit what she can find — a search still turns up every matching recipe you’ve saved.

Mention a preference while you’re chatting — “we’re vegetarian,” “we skip cilantro,” “there are four of us” — and she may offer to save it, with Yes, remember it and No thanks under her question. She offers one preference at a time, and nothing is saved unless you tap Yes, remember it. Tap it and the chat notes Saved to kitchen settings and she answers “Saved — I’ll remember”; tap No thanks and she moves on. Only a kitchen owner can change settings — if you’re a member, she says so and leaves it to them. When she makes that offer she also puts your kitchen preferences on the workshop bench, so you can see what’s already saved before you decide. If you’re an owner, tapping Yes, remember it updates the bench with what you just saved.

An avoided ingredient shapes what she suggests and drafts, and that’s all it does. Nothing in Mirepoix hides or sets aside a recipe because of it. Mirepoix has no allergy setting and doesn’t screen recipes for allergens — read a recipe’s ingredients yourself when it matters to someone’s health.

Her memory of the conversation itself is separate and much shorter — see Your conversation and starting fresh.

Tap a choice she offers

Sometimes Mirabel’s question has just a few clear answers — which recipe you meant, or what to do with a draft next. When it does, she shows the answers as tappable buttons under her question. Tap one to send it as your reply, or ignore the buttons and type your own answer in the Message Mirabel box instead.

Some of those buttons stay live after you tap; others lock. The ones that walk you through adding a recipe stay live — where the recipe is coming from under Add Recipe, and the other ways in when an import doesn’t go through. Your pick is highlighted, nothing switches off, and tapping a different button moves the pick there. Opened the photo picker and thought better of it? Tap I’ll paste the text instead.

Those buttons settle into a fixed record — your pick highlighted, the rest dimmed, all switched off — as soon as changing your mind would come too late: you’ve sent her a message, a new set of choices has taken over, or you typed an answer instead of tapping.

The questions she asks you in the middle of a conversation lock on the first tap: which recipe you meant, Yes, remember it or No thanks, Yes, add them or No thanks. So do two others — Import this recipe or Just asking about it on a bare link, and the choices under a finished draft. Each of those sends her something, changes your kitchen, or hands the draft off to the editor, so there’s no taking it back.

Neither marking outlasts a reload. Come back to the conversation later and her mid-conversation questions look untapped again; the walk-through buttons aren’t there at all, because they’re interface rather than part of the conversation she keeps.

Add a recipe, step by step

The quickest way to add a recipe is the Add Recipe button at the top of your recipes list. Tap it and Mirabel opens with one question — Let’s add a recipe. Where is it coming from? — and a set of choices:

You can also start this interview from the Add a recipe starter when her panel first opens, or skip the buttons and tell her what you want in the box — the choices are a shortcut, never the only way. Prefer dragging? Drop a file straight onto her panel and she sorts it the same way — importing a backup or reading a photo.

The website, photo, paste, and single-file sources all lead to the same draft you review and save, described in the sections below. A ZIP archive, or several files chosen at once, skips the draft — those recipes import right away, and the result is noted in the chat.

Import a recipe by pasting it

Ask her for the paste step first: tap Add Recipe and pick I’ll paste the text, or tap Copy & paste it yourself when she offers it after an import that didn’t go through. She asks you to paste the recipe below, and what you paste next goes straight into an import. She reads it herself first, with no AI, and adds a Recipe draft card to the chat, with the recipe’s title, an Open in workshop button, and Open in editor beside it. While she reads, a brief Reading that recipe… line appears. With the draft, she tells you it’s pieced together from the text you gave her. She also points out anything to double-check — a title she wasn’t sure about, or ingredient lines that didn’t parse cleanly. She turns to AI only when the text is too jumbled to read cleanly, or you ask her to redo it with AI (see Use AI instead below). A recipe she reads directly is free — it doesn’t count against your monthly AI allowance.

You can also just paste a recipe into the Message Mirabel box out of the blue and ask her to import it, and she will. That takes a different route: your message reaches her the way any message does, so the recipe text goes to Anthropic to generate her reply, and the draft she builds from it is an AI import — there’s no reading-it-herself step, and it draws on your monthly AI allowance. Going through the paste step is what gets you the free, no-AI read. Data and privacy sets out the difference in full.

You can paste a fair amount in one go — a full recipe plus your request fits comfortably. If you paste much more than a single recipe, she’ll ask you to trim it down. She works best with a focused selection, so when you copy from a web page, try to leave out navigation links and comments.

If the recipe text is already in the recent conversation, ask her to import that recipe. She reads the recent chat along with your request, so you don’t have to paste the same text again. That one is always an AI import — the text she’s working from is the conversation, which has already gone to Anthropic.

If the text you paste names a source, or if you tell her where the recipe came from, she can include that source in the draft’s footer. She won’t guess at a source when one isn’t provided.

Once the draft lands, Mirabel offers a set of choices under it:

Every draft is the full recipe as written unless you condense it. Where AI does the reading, a substitution the recipe offers and an ingredient it marks optional arrive as fields — a substitute row under the ingredient, and the line’s own optional mark — rather than as a note in the footer, and the same holds for an edit she proposes to a recipe you’ve already saved. A draft is a starting point, not a finished recipe — check the title, ingredients, quantities, and steps before you save it, wherever you do that.

When it looks right, tap Open in workshop on the card to review it on her workshop bench and save it from there, or tap Open in editor — on the card, or Save it above — to go straight to the full-page editor instead. Nothing is saved until you save it, in the workshop or the editor — the draft lives only in the chat until then, and tapping Clear conversation discards it, and empties the workshop, along with the rest of the conversation.

If your browser won’t let her hand the draft to the editor — private browsing does that, and so does a full storage quota — she says so in the chat rather than leaving the tap to do nothing. The draft is safe in your conversation for a few days, so opening it from an ordinary window works.

Import a recipe from a photo

Got a recipe on paper — a cookbook page, an index card, a handwritten note? Tap the camera button (Attach a recipe photo) in her panel to pick a photo or take one. Add it, ask her to import it, and she reads the photo and builds a Recipe draft card, the same as a pasted recipe.

You can attach up to 10 photos at once — they’re read in order and combined into one recipe, so a recipe spread across two pages works. Each photo is shrunk in your browser before it’s sent, and its camera metadata is stripped. The photos are held just long enough to build the draft, then deleted — they aren’t kept.

If a cookbook header, page footer, or your message names the source, she can carry that into the draft’s footer. If the source isn’t visible and you don’t name one, she leaves it out.

You don’t have to type anything — a photo on its own is enough to import. From there it’s the same as any draft: ask for changes in plain words, then tap Open in workshop or Open in editor to review and save. Nothing is saved until you save it, in the workshop or the editor.

Paste the address of a recipe page into the Message Mirabel box and ask her to import it. She opens the page — a brief Fetching that page… line shows while she does — and turns it into a Recipe draft card, same as a pasted recipe.

If you paste just a web address into the box on its own — nothing else — Mirabel checks what you meant first. She asks Import this recipe or Just asking about it, so a link you only wanted to ask about doesn’t turn into an import.

She opens the link you paste, and nothing else. She won’t follow other links on the page or go looking for one you didn’t send.

When a draft comes from a link, she can include that page as the source in the recipe footer. If the page itself names an author or publication, she can use that name; otherwise she uses the site’s address.

A link goes the same two ways text does. Tap Import this recipe on the choice above, or pick From a website under Add Recipe, and she tries to read the page herself first, with no AI; she turns to AI only when the page is too messy to read cleanly. A page she reads directly is free — it doesn’t count against your monthly AI allowance. Wrap the link in a sentence instead — “can you import this for me, https://…” — and it’s an ordinary message, so your message goes to Anthropic and the page she opens is read with AI. Either way she opens the page from Mirepoix’s server, not from your browser.

When a page carries its recipe in a form she can read cleanly, the draft comes out more faithful to the original. Reading it directly, she also says where the draft came from — the site’s own recipe data, or the page text. She flags anything to double-check.

A YouTube link works too. Paste the address of a video and she reads the video’s description — the text under the video, where the recipe usually lives. She doesn’t watch or listen to the video, so a recipe that’s only spoken on screen won’t come through. When she can’t find a recipe in the description, she tells you plainly: “Sorry, I can’t find a recipe on that page. If you have the recipe text, paste it into the chat and I’ll build the draft from it.” Copy the recipe out of the description and paste it in, and she’ll build the draft from that.

When a link’s page carries a photo in its recipe data, she brings that photo over too, for you to keep or drop while you review the draft — see a photo that came in with an import.

She can only open public recipe pages over the web. If a link won’t open — it’s private, it’s not a web page, or the page is too large — she’ll say so and suggest copying the recipe text into the chat instead.

Some pages behind a login or paywall hand her a different recipe than the one you linked — a featured recipe in place of the one you wanted. When she spots that the page’s recipe doesn’t match your link, she tells you instead of drafting the wrong one. She’ll point you to the import bookmarklet, which reads the page in your own logged-in browser, or you can paste the recipe text into the chat instead.

Other sites block automated readers entirely — a protection many popular recipe sites use. When a site turns her away like that, she can’t open the page at all. She’ll tell you the site blocks automated readers and point you to the same two fixes: the import bookmarklet, which reads the page in your own logged-in browser, or pasting the recipe text into the chat.

A site can also ask automated readers to leave a page alone without blocking anyone — it says so in a file called robots.txt. Mirepoix reads that file before opening any page and honors it. When a rule there covers the page you linked, Mirabel doesn’t open it, and tells you the site asked her not to. That’s a stated preference rather than a locked door, but the fixes are the same two: the import bookmarklet or pasting the recipe text. Web fetching covers what Mirepoix sends when it opens a page, and how a site can turn it away.

From there it’s the same as any draft: ask for changes in plain words, then tap Open in workshop or Open in editor to review and save. Nothing is saved until you save it, in the workshop or the editor.

Import from your browser or by sharing

Two more ways to start an import without pasting anything into the chat.

From your browser, use the import bookmarklet — a button you drag to your bookmarks bar once, then click on a recipe page Mirepoix can’t open itself, like anything behind a login or paywall. Settings has the setup and the rest of that flow.

On an Android phone, share a recipe link to Mirepoix. Once you’ve added Mirepoix to your home screen, it shows up in the system Share sheet. Share a link from your browser or another app, pick Mirepoix, and she opens on your recipes with the same confirm card the bookmarklet shows — tap Import to turn the page into a draft.

This doesn’t work on iPhone or iPad. Safari doesn’t let an installed web app join the system Share sheet, so Mirepoix won’t be one of the choices there no matter how it’s installed. To bring in a link on an iPhone, paste it to Mirabel — she reads the page the same way and hands back the same draft.

Either way, you get the full recipe as written. The rest is like any draft: ask for changes in plain words, tap Condense it first if you want the trimmed version, then tap Open in workshop or Open in editor to review and save. Nothing is saved until you save it, in the workshop or the editor.

When an import doesn’t go through

If a page won’t open or an import can’t finish, Mirabel doesn’t leave you stuck — she lays out the ways that still work: Copy & paste it yourself, Try a photo, From a file, and I’ll type it myself. With a mouse or trackpad she also offers a way to get the recipe off a page she can’t reach: Set up the grab-it button, an in-panel walkthrough for dragging the import bookmarklet onto your bookmarks bar. There’s no touch-device equivalent — on a phone or tablet, copy the recipe text and paste it to her instead.

Hand her a text file she can’t read as one recipe — it’s too long, or there’s no recipe in it to find — and she says so plainly instead of saving a bad draft, and points you back to pasting just the recipe.

If the trouble is your monthly AI allowance running out, her AI choices step aside and the ones that don’t need her — a file, or typing it yourself — stay.

On a deployment with no Anthropic API key at all — a different situation, with the same visible shape — the options that need AI drop out here too. Copy & paste it yourself, From a file, and I’ll type it myself stay, since none of them uses AI; Try a photo and Set up the grab-it button don’t appear.

If a plain question can’t go through

Sometimes a question can’t reach her — a dropped connection, or a hiccup reaching her AI service. When that happens, a Try again button appears under her reply. Tap it to resend the same question, so you don’t have to retype it.

When trying again wouldn’t get you anywhere — her AI features aren’t set up on this deployment, your kitchen has used up its monthly AI allowance, or she couldn’t read what you sent at all — she says so in the chat, and no button appears. That last one is what an unreadable photo runs into: she asks for a clearer or smaller one, since sending the same photo again would land the same way.

Edit a saved recipe

Ask Mirabel to change a recipe you’ve already saved — “make the pancakes gluten-free,” “halve the recipe,” “add a step to preheat the oven.” When you’re on a recipe’s page, “make this vegan” is enough — she edits the recipe you’re viewing. Anywhere else, name the recipe so she can find it. While she works, a brief Reworking that recipe… line appears.

Ask her to condense one the same way — “condense my tomato sauce recipe,” “give me the expert version of the pancakes” — and she proposes the trimmed, expert-shorthand version as the same kind of edit, no pasting required. While she works, a brief Condensing that recipe… line appears.

She proposes the change as a Proposed edit card in the chat, with the recipe’s title. She doesn’t touch the recipe yet — the proposal lives only in the chat until you apply it.

If it’s her latest proposal, the card also carries an Open in workshop button — tap it to review her edit on her workshop bench. Ask her for another change, to the same recipe or a different one, and a fresh card takes over the button. An older proposal card loses it, with no way back to that proposal in the workshop — ask her to redo it if you want to see it there again.

Nothing is saved until you apply it in the workshop, or save it from the editor.

If your browser won’t let her hand the edit to the recipe’s edit page — private browsing does that, and so does a full storage quota — she says so in the chat rather than leaving the tap to do nothing. Nothing on your recipe has changed, and her version is safe in your conversation for a few days.

If the recipe changes after Mirabel read it, the workshop won’t let you apply over the newer version — ask her to redo the edit and she’ll work from what’s there now. The same holds if it changes in the moment between opening the workshop and tapping Apply changes: applying refuses, and she tells you the recipe isn’t what it was when she wrote the edit.

Editing a recipe this way counts against your monthly AI allowance, the same as an import.

Ask what to make

Not sure what to cook? Ask Mirabel — “what should I make this week?” — and she suggests recipes from your own kitchen. She draws on three angles: forgotten favorites you’ve cooked before but not in a while, your newest recipes, and quick wins where every ingredient is already on hand. While she looks, a brief Looking at what you cook… line appears.

The quickest way in is the What Should We Make? button on the Menu page. It opens Mirabel straight into the question with three tappable choices — forgotten favorites, what’s new, and quick wins — and each recipe she shows has an Add to Menu button. Typing your own question works too; she pulls from the same suggestions either way.

Her suggestions come from recipes you’ve saved, the weeks each recipe has spent on your menu, and — for quick wins — what’s on hand in your Pantry. Your Cooking preferences ride along with your message and steer what she picks, but every saved recipe stays in the running — nothing is set aside before she looks. She only suggests: nothing joins your Menu until you tap — Add to Menu on a card she shows, or Yes, add them on an offer she makes.

Ask what’s on hand, on the menu, or on the list

Ask Mirabel about the rest of your kitchen and she looks it up rather than guessing. Three things are open to her:

Ask about a handful of ingredients at once — she checks up to ten names in one go.

On hand doesn’t mean counted. Mirepoix never tracks how much of an ingredient you have. The Pantry tracks when to ask about an ingredient again, so “you have butter” means butter’s reminder clock is still resting — not that anyone looked in the fridge. She won’t give you an amount, because there isn’t one to give.

An ingredient a selected recipe or QuickBite calls for is already on your Pantry shelf, so she knows it even if you’ve never touched it — she’ll answer about it the way the shelf does, which for something with no reminder set yet means Time to check.

If the Pantry has no record of an ingredient at all, she says that instead, and it isn’t the same as being out of it. It means nothing has put that ingredient on your kitchen’s radar yet: nothing on your Menu calls for it, and nobody has put it on a list or given it a reminder by hand.

What she calls running low is the same two groups your Pantry shows: the rows under Time to check, whose clock has come due, and the rows already On the list. For that second group she reads your shopping list as it stands right now, so an item whose buy has already gone through counts as due for a check again — even if the Pantry page is still showing it on the list. The Pantry shelf is built from what’s on your Menu, so an ingredient no selected recipe or QuickBite calls for won’t turn up in that answer — ask about it by name instead.

On the shopping list she sees names, not amounts. An item you’ve checked off is still on the list, marked as bought, until the buy commits an hour later.

Reading changes nothing on its own. She can’t change what your Pantry says is on hand, check an item off your list, or take anything off your Menu — those stay yours, from the Pantry, Groceries, or Menu page. What she can do is offer to add, below.

Ask what you still need for a recipe

Ask Mirabel what one of your saved recipes takes to cook — “what do I need to buy for the chili?”, “can I make the pancakes tonight?” — and she works it out against your Pantry and your shopping list instead of reading the recipe back to you. While she looks, a brief Working out what you still need… line appears in the chat.

Her answer comes back in the chat, and the list itself lands on her workshop bench: the recipe’s title, how many of the ingredients it needs from the store you already have, and everything that’s left to buy. She’s told three numbers — what’s left to buy, what’s missing but already on your list, and how many the recipe needs from the store in all — so she can tell one from another instead of speaking a bare count. She gets the first twenty of the names left to buy to talk about; if the list runs longer she’s told it was trimmed, and asked to say so rather than pass it off as the whole list. The bench always holds all of it.

The count of what you have comes from the same reckoning behind a Menu row’s Missing/Have breakdown, so “on hand” means what it means there — a Pantry row you’ve bought whose reminder clock hasn’t come due again. An ingredient your Pantry has no record of counts as one you still need.

It counts only what you’d buy. An ingredient set to be left off the grocery list never appears here, and water and ice come that way out of the box — so this count can be lower than the recipe’s own ingredient list.

The pane leaves out what’s already on your list. An ingredient you’ve added isn’t offered again — the pane names it as one it left out. That line is there because the count above it still counts your Pantry alone: it’s what explains the shorter list underneath. The button offers only what’s neither in your Pantry nor on your list. If everything you’re short of is already on the list, the pane says you’re set, names those items, and links you through to the list. An item you checked off in the store still counts as on the list, and so does anything that shares its row there — lemon zest and a lemon are one line on your list, and either one being on it leaves both out of the pane. So the tap has nothing crossed-off to reach: it can’t un-cross a buy you’d already finished.

Optional ingredients are listed apart. Anything the recipe marks optional gathers under Optional, if you want them:. It doesn’t count toward the number above it, and the add never includes it — the tap covers what the recipe requires. An optional you’ve already put on your list drops out of that group, the same way one you have on hand does. So a recipe short only an optional herb still reads as complete: you’ll see the nothing-to-add line with the optional list sitting under it.

The button counts the list right above it — Add 3 items to your list. Tap it and the items join your Groceries list. The pane then says what landed, by name, and links you through to the list. If part of it couldn’t be added, it names both halves rather than claiming the lot. Items go on as names without amounts, exactly like an offer she makes in chat — nothing about your Pantry changes.

Saved recipes only. A draft still in the chat can’t be worked out this way; save it first.

The pane works the list out again every time it loads, so it shows your Pantry and your shopping list as they stood at that moment. It doesn’t keep up on its own, though: if someone else in the kitchen shops while you’re reading, the pane in front of you won’t move. Open it again — reopen her panel, or switch to Chat and back on a narrow screen — and it works the list out afresh.

The tap itself is never stale, however long the pane has sat there. What goes on your list is what your Pantry is short of and your list doesn’t already hold at the moment you tap, which is why the pane names each item afterwards rather than repeating the number on the button. If there’s nothing left to add by then, it tells you so instead of claiming a change — and says which it is: you have the lot, or the rest is already on your list.

Ask her to add to your list or Menu

Ask Mirabel to put something on your shopping list — “add butter and eggs to the list” — or a saved recipe on your Menu — “put the pancakes on the menu” — and she offers rather than acts. Her question arrives with what she’d add listed under it and two buttons: Yes, add them and No thanks.

Nothing is added until you tap Yes, add them. Tap No thanks, or leave the question alone, and nothing changes. That list under her question is the whole of what your tap does, so read it first — item names for the list, recipe titles for the Menu.

One offer covers up to twenty items for the list, or up to five recipes for the Menu. Ask for more and the extras don’t make it into the offer — she’s told it was trimmed, and asked to say so rather than pass it off as the whole list. Check her list against what you asked for either way.

Tap Yes, add them and the items join your Groceries list, or the recipes join your Menu, just as if you’d added them yourself — the chat notes what landed. If part of it couldn’t be added, she names what did and what didn’t rather than claiming the lot.

Items go to your shopping list, not the Pantry. She adds names, never amounts — “flour,” not “2 cups flour” — exactly like a custom item you type into the Groceries page yourself, down to landing in Miscellaneous unless Mirepoix already knows where you keep it. Adding a name that’s already on the list folds into the row that’s there. Nothing about your Pantry changes: putting flour on the list doesn’t tell the Pantry you have flour.

Saved recipes only for the Menu. A recipe has to be one you’ve saved — a draft still in the chat can’t go on the Menu that way, and neither can a QuickBite. If she can’t find a recipe she named, she leaves it out of the offer rather than adding the wrong one.

An offer lasts until the conversation reloads. Closing her panel and opening it again doesn’t retire it — the offer is still live, and Yes, add them still adds. Moving to another page does retire it, and so does coming back to the conversation later. So does leaving the tab and returning while her panel is open. After that, tapping Yes, add them just sends those words to her as a reply, and nothing is added. Ask again and she’ll make a fresh offer. Each recipe title in a Menu offer is a link to that recipe, so opening one to check it counts as moving to another page — decide first, then look.

Your conversation and starting fresh

Your back-and-forth with Mirabel is kept on Mirepoix’s servers for a short time — about three days. That’s long enough for it to survive a reload, and to pick up where you left off on another device. Each kitchen keeps its own separate conversation. Mirabel remembers the current conversation. After about an hour of quiet she starts a fresh one, so old import details don’t carry over. The Data and privacy page covers what’s kept and for how long.

You’ll see that happen. A line appears across the panel reading New conversation — Mirabel won’t remember the messages above. It shows up when you reload the page or come back to the tab with her panel open, and again when your next message goes out. Everything above the line stays there to read — she just can’t refer to it any more. The follow-up choices under a draft older than the line drop away, since there’s nothing left for her to condense or rework. A Recipe draft card keeps both its buttons, though: Open in workshop still puts that draft on the bench, and Open in editor still opens it, for as long as that conversation is kept. A Proposed edit card is different — its Open in workshop button retires at the line, and there’s no way back to that proposal. Ask her to redo the edit instead; reopening the workshop on it just says she hasn’t proposed a change in this conversation.

A short note at the start of every fresh conversation reminds you that Mirabel can make mistakes and that your messages go to Anthropic — tap the ⓘ button in her header to see it again anytime.

To start fresh yourself, tap Clear conversation in the header at the top of her panel. That closes the current conversation and starts a new one — the next thing you ask begins fresh. It clears her workshop too, so a fresh conversation doesn’t open beside a leftover from the last one.

To generate her replies, the text you type and the recent part of your conversation go to Anthropic — every message, whatever it holds. An import you start from one of her steps skips that: the paste step, From a website, a single recipe file, tapping Import this recipe on a bare link, and the bookmarklet or the share sheet all hand what you gave her to Mirepoix’s own server, which reads it there with no AI, and it goes to Anthropic only when she can’t read it cleanly or you ask her to redo it with AI. A backup archive, or several files at once, doesn’t even have that fallback — Mirepoix’s server restores those itself and nothing about them goes to Anthropic. An import you ask for in an ordinary message doesn’t skip it — the recipe text or link is already in the message, and the draft is built with AI. Asking her to import recipe text from the recent chat, or to revise or condense a draft, always sends that text and the draft. So the draft can be filed correctly, your kitchen’s category and tag names go along with an import too. Either way, Mirepoix’s server is what opens a link you send. A photo always takes AI to read, but the image doesn’t ride along with your message — it’s sent when she builds the draft. When you ask about your own recipes, the matching titles, page addresses, categories, and tags go along too. When you ask about your Pantry, your Menu, or your shopping list, what she finds there goes along the same way. An offer to add sends nothing new — the item names are her own words from your conversation, and the recipe titles are ones a search already sends — but after you tap, a short note of what landed rides along with your next message. If your kitchen has saved cooking preferences, a short summary of them goes with every message. See Data and privacy for exactly what’s sent and what isn’t.

When she’s helping a lot of cooks

Sometimes a lot of requests reach Mirabel at once — from you, or from other cooks across Mirepoix. When that happens, she works through them in turn, so her reply can take a little longer to arrive. Nothing is broken and nothing is lost — you don’t need to do anything. She’s working in the background, so you can even close the tab or switch devices and pick her reply back up later. This isn’t your monthly AI allowance running out — that message names the date she’s back.

The monthly AI allowance

Mirabel shares one monthly AI allowance with AI import — the same pool covers both, for everyone in the kitchen. When it runs out, Mirabel says she needs a breather and tells you the date she’s back. The allowance resets on the 1st of each month.

See also

Last updated August 27, 2026