Chef Sentient

A cooking assistant that turns what you have in the kitchen into realistic recipes and keeps the conversation going.

Chef Jed is a React chat app backed by an Express API. It streams recipe responses from Hugging Face, detects cooking intent, and can research named dishes before answering.

Live demo: chef-jed-beta.vercel.app

Tech stack

Frontend: React, Vite, Tailwind CSS, Framer Motion, GSAP
Backend: Express
AI: Hugging Face Inference, Firecrawl (recipe research)

Features

• Ingredient-based recipe generation with streaming responses
• Follow-up chat for substitutions, technique questions, and recipe tweaks
• Intent detection that keeps the assistant focused on cooking
• Optional recipe research for named dishes
• Conversation history and feedback stored in the browser
• iMessage-style chat UI with motion and glass surfaces

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20+
• npm
• Hugging Face access token

Getting started

git clone https://github.com/jvchi/chef-jed.git
cd chef-jed
npm install

Create a .env file in the project root:

HF_ACCESS_TOKEN=your_huggingface_token
FIRECRAWL_API_KEY=optional_for_recipe_research
PORT=3001

Run the API and frontend in separate terminals:

npm run server
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:5173. The Vite dev server proxies /api to the Express server on port 3001.

Build and test

npm run build
npm run preview
npm test

Note

Recipe research for named dishes requires FIRECRAWL_API_KEY. Without it, the app can still generate recipes from ingredients.

Important

HF_ACCESS_TOKEN is required for any in-scope cooking response. Requests are rejected if the token is missing.

Project structure

src/
  components/          # chat UI, recipe cards, history, navbar
  lib/                 # scroll helpers and shared utilities
api/
  chefLogic.js         # intent detection, prompts, recipe research
  recipe.js            # serverless recipe handler
server.js              # local Express API with SSE streaming