Pantry

The Pantry plugin shows what's in your pantry, fridge and freezer, what's running low and what expires soon, and lets you add, change and remove items without editing the file by hand.

Installing

Pantry is optional. Open the Extensions view, search for Pantry and choose Install. A jar icon appears in the right-hand bar; click it, or run Pantry: Show Pantry from the command palette.

The plugin needs a recent Cook Editor. On an older version the panel asks you to update.

The pantry file

Your pantry lives in config/pantry.conf in your recipe folder — the same file CookCLI's cook pantry and the Shopping List use. If you don't have one yet, click Create pantry in the panel.

Each [section] is a place in your kitchen. An item is either just a quantity or a set of details:

[fridge]
milk = { quantity = "1%L", expire = "2026-10-03", low = "250%ml" }
butter = "250%g"

[pantry]
flour = { quantity = "1.5%kg", low = "500%g", bought = "2026-09-20" }
salt = {}

• quantity — how much you have. 500%g is shown as 500 g; in the panel just type 500 g.
• low — the amount at which the item counts as running low.
• bought and expire — dates. 2026-10-03 works best; 03.10.2026 and 03/10/2026 are understood too.

Items written above the first [section] can only have a quantity. Move them into a section to track expiry or a low-stock level.

Stock status

Each item has a coloured dot. If more than one applies, the most urgent wins:

• Expired (red) — the expiry date has passed.
• Out of stock (red) — the quantity is zero, e.g. 0 g. An item with no quantity at all counts as in stock.
• Low (amber) — the quantity is at or below low. Both must use the same unit.
• Expiring (amber) — expires within 7 days.
• In stock (green) — everything else.

Items with an expiry date also show when: in 3 days, today or expired 2 days ago.

Search and filters

Type in the search box to find items by name. The chips below it narrow the list to Low, Out of stock or Expiring items (expiring includes anything already expired). While searching or filtering, each section shows how many of its items match, e.g. 1/4. Click a section's name to fold it away.

Adding and editing items

• Add: click Add in the panel, the + in its title bar, or run Pantry: Add Pantry Item. Pick a section or type a new one, then fill in the name and any details.
• Edit: click an item, change its details and click Save (or press Enter). Escape cancels. Emptying a field removes that detail from the item.
• Remove: click an item, then Delete. You're asked to confirm. When a section's last item goes, the section goes too.

Names are unique within a section regardless of case: adding Milk next to milk shows an error instead of creating a second entry.

Your file stays yours

Every change touches only the item you edited. Comments, blank lines, the order of items and anything the panel doesn't know about stay exactly as you wrote them. If you edit pantry.conf yourself — in the editor, with CookBot or with CookCLI — the panel updates as soon as the file is saved.

If part of the file is written in a form the panel can't change safely (a section written as a list, for example), it tells you so and leaves the file alone; make that change by hand. The document icon in the panel's title bar (Pantry: Open pantry.conf) opens the file. If the file can't be read at all, the panel shows the error and an Open file button.

With the shopping list

The Shopping List takes your pantry into account: what you have is subtracted from what your recipes need (when the units match), and anything you have enough of is listed under In Pantry instead. Mark an item out of stock (quantity 0) or remove it and it's back on the list.

Building your own plugin on the pantry? See cooklang.api.parsePantry and cooklang.api.editPantry in the Cooklang API.