Meet CookBot: An AI That Edits Your Recipe Files, With Your Approval

Most "AI for cooking" is a chat window that spits out a recipe you then copy, paste, and clean up by hand. The AI doesn't know what's already in your collection, and it can't actually do anything to your files.

CookBot is different. It's an AI assistant built into Cook Editor that works on your recipes — reading the ones you share with it, and writing changes directly to your .cook files. With one rule: nothing happens without your approval.

It lives next to your work

CookBot sits in a sidebar alongside your recipes. Because it can pull in the specific recipes and meal plans you point it at, it answers questions in the context of your collection — not generic internet advice:

  • "Scale this curry to 6 and adjust the spice for kids."
  • "I have chicken thighs, spinach, and feta. What can I make this week?"
  • "Turn this blog post into a clean recipe and add it to my Mains folder."
  • "Build a vegetarian meal plan for next week and a shopping list to match."

It's powered by Claude Sonnet, so it actually understands cooking — substitutions, techniques, timing — not just text completion.

Every change is a diff you approve

This is the part that matters. CookBot doesn't quietly rewrite your files. When it proposes a change, you see exactly what it wants to do, as a diff:

  Simmer @tomatoes{400%g} with @garlic{2%cloves} for ~{15%minutes}.
- Season with @salt and @pepper.
+ Season with @salt{1%tsp} and @black pepper{1/2%tsp}.
+ Stir in @fresh basil{handful} just before serving.

Nothing is written to disk until you click accept. You stay in control of your collection — CookBot is a fast assistant, not an autopilot that scribbles over your recipes.

And it only reads what you choose to share in the conversation. CookBot never has your full library handed to it by default; you decide what's in scope.

What it's good at

Importing. Point it at a URL — "add this to my collection" — and it converts the page into a clean .cook file, tagged and structured.

Meal planning. Ask for a week of dinners around a constraint (budget, dietary, what's in the fridge) and it drafts a .menu file linking recipes across days, plus a shopping list.

Editing at speed. Scaling, rewording steps, splitting one recipe into two, normalizing units — the tedious edits CookBot does in seconds, you approve in one click.

Answering in context. Because it can see the recipes you share, "what should I serve alongside this?" gets an answer that fits what you actually cook.

Open by design

The editor and the CookBot integration are open source. You can read exactly how prompts are built and how files are handled — no black box deciding what to do with your recipes. For a format whose whole premise is own your data, that transparency isn't optional.

How to try it

CookBot is built into Cook Editor, which is free and open source. The AI assistant itself is part of Cookbot Pro — €10/month, cancel anytime, no annual lock-in. That covers unlimited CookBot conversations, recipe import from any URL, AI meal planning, and personalization.

If you cancel, you lose the AI features — but not your recipes. Your .cook and .menu files are plain text on your disk, and they keep working in Cook Editor, any text editor, and the mobile apps. The AI is a tool you rent; the collection is always yours.

Download Cook Editor to try CookBot, or see what's included in Cookbot Pro.