Mirabel, your kitchen helper

Mirabel is the in-app assistant. 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, and propose edits to a recipe you’ve saved. She never changes your kitchen on her own — nothing changes until you apply or save it yourself.

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 grow her panel into a wider workspace. It’s handy for a long reply or comparing recipe drafts side by side. Tap it again to shrink back. She remembers your choice on that device the next time you open her.

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 and share imports need the key. 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.

What she can help with

How Mirepoix works. Ask her how to import a recipe, what the Pantry does, how to scale a recipe, or anything else covered in this help site. Her answers come from these same help pages.
Light cooking advice. Ask her what you can use instead of buttermilk, or a quick question about technique.
Finding your own recipes by name. Ask “Do I have a recipe for bagels?” or “What do I have for soup?” and she’ll search your recipes by the words in their titles. She matches title words only — not ingredients or instructions — and shows up to twenty matches. While she looks, a brief Checking your recipes… line appears in the chat.
Turning a recipe into a draft. Tap Add Recipe and she’ll walk you through it, or hand her the recipe directly — paste the text, paste a link, attach a photo, or ask her to import recipe text already in the conversation. She builds a draft for you to review. See below.
Editing a saved recipe. Ask her to change one of your recipes — “make this vegan,” “double it,” “add a step to preheat the oven” — and she proposes the edit for you to preview on the recipe itself. See below.
Suggesting what to make. Ask “what should I make this week?” and she suggests recipes from your own kitchen — forgotten favorites, your newest, and quick wins you have every ingredient for. See below.

She works only with your own kitchen’s recipes, and only when you ask. Apart from the meal suggestions below — which draw on your cook history and what’s on hand — she can’t read your shopping list or anything else, and she can’t change your kitchen on her own — 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. It goes along with your message, and the Data and privacy page covers it.

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.

Once you tap, your pick stays highlighted and the buttons switch off, so the conversation keeps a clear record of what you chose. Your pick stays marked if you come back to the conversation later.

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:

From a website — she asks for the page address, then fetches the page and builds a draft.
From a photo — opens the photo picker to take or choose a picture of a recipe on paper. This is the one source that needs the deployment to have an Anthropic API key configured — reading a photo takes AI. Without a key it isn’t offered; the others work regardless.
I’ll paste the text — focuses the box so you can paste the recipe in.
From a file — opens a file picker for a .zip, .md, .txt, or .text file, or an image. A single .md, .txt, or .text file becomes a draft to review, the same as pasting the recipe or giving her a link. A .zip, or more than one file chosen at once, imports straight away; an image goes to the photo reader.
I’ll type it myself — closes the panel and opens a blank recipe editor, no AI involved.

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

Paste a recipe into the Message Mirabel box — ingredients, steps, whatever you’ve got — and ask her to import it. She reads it herself first, with no AI, and adds a Recipe draft card to the chat, with the recipe’s title and an Open in editor button. 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 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.

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:

Save it opens the draft in the recipe editor to review and save.
Condense it first rewrites it in the trimmed, expert-shorthand style and adds it as a second card, so you can compare the full and condensed versions.
Use AI instead shows only when she read the recipe herself, without AI. Tap it to redo the import with AI — helpful if the quick read missed a step or an amount.
Change something lets you ask for edits in plain words — “halve the salt,” “switch it to metric,” “drop the nuts.” She reworks the draft and adds a fresh card with the new version; the Reworking the draft… line shows while she does. The earlier cards stay in the conversation, so you can look back.

Every draft is the full recipe as written unless you condense it.

When the draft looks right, tap Open in editor on the card — or Save it just below it. Either opens the draft in the recipe editor — the same full-page editor a new recipe uses — where you review it and tap Save, just like any recipe. A draft is a starting point, not a finished recipe — check the title, ingredients, quantities, and steps before you save. She takes you straight there from whatever page you’re on. Nothing is saved until you save it there — the draft lives only in the chat until then, and tapping Clear conversation discards it along with the rest of the conversation.

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 editor to review and save. Nothing is saved until you save it there.

Import a recipe from a link

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.

She reads a link much like text you paste. First she tries to read the page herself, 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. 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.

When a link’s page carries a photo in its recipe data, she brings that photo over too. You won’t see it while you review the draft — it’s added when you save, and then shows in the recipe’s header, where you can replace or remove it. A page with no photo imports the same way, just without one.

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 editor to review and save. Nothing is saved until you save it there.

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

From your browser, use the import bookmarklet. You set it up once in Settings by dragging a button to your bookmarks bar. Then, on a recipe page Mirepoix can’t open itself — anything behind a login or paywall — click the saved bookmark. It reads that page’s recipe and opens your recipes, where Mirabel shows a confirm card asking Import a recipe from that site? Tap Import to build a draft, or Dismiss to cancel. Nothing is sent until you tap Import.

On a 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 — tap Import to turn the page into a draft, the same as pasting a link into the chat.

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 editor to review and save. Nothing is saved until you save it there.

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. She also offers a way to get the recipe off a page she can’t reach — with a mouse or trackpad that’s Set up the grab-it button, an in-panel walkthrough for dragging the import bookmarklet onto your bookmarks bar; on a touch device it’s Share the page to Mirepoix.

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, Set up the grab-it button, and Share the page to Mirepoix 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.

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.” 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 and a Preview changes button. She doesn’t touch the recipe yet — the proposal lives only in the chat.

Tap Preview changes to open the recipe with her edit marked right on the page: added text is highlighted and removed text is struck through, the same way recipe history shows a change. A bar at the top reads Previewing Mirabel’s edit — nothing is saved until you apply, with three choices:

Apply to recipe saves the edit. It becomes the recipe’s newest version, recorded in its history and marked via Mirabel.
Edit first opens the recipe’s edit page with her version loaded, so you can adjust it before saving.
Discard drops the proposal and returns to the recipe unchanged.

Nothing is saved until you tap Apply to recipe.

If the recipe changed after Mirabel read it — you or someone in your kitchen saved it in the meantime — she can’t apply her edit over the newer version. The preview says the recipe has changed since Mirabel read it and blocks applying. Tap Close preview, ask her to redo the edit, then preview the fresh proposal.

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 four tappable choices — the three suggestion types plus a spin of the weighted wheel — 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 cooks you’ve marked Made it on the Menu page, and — for quick wins — what’s on hand in your Pantry. She only suggests: nothing joins your menu until you tap Add to Menu.

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.

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.

To generate her replies, the text you type and the recent part of your conversation go to Anthropic. When you paste a recipe to import, she reads it herself first — the text goes to Anthropic only when she can’t read it cleanly, or you ask her to redo it 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. When you paste a link into the chat, Mirepoix’s server always opens the page for you, but she reads it herself first — what it finds there goes to Anthropic only when the page is too messy to read cleanly, or you ask her to redo it with AI. An import you start from the bookmarklet or the share sheet always sends the recipe to Anthropic to build the draft. When you ask about your own recipes, the matching titles, page addresses, categories, and tags go along too. 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.