ChefKit - Your Cooking Companion

ChefKit is a modern, multilingual cooking app built with Flutter and Flask. It combines recipe discovery, chef profiles, inventory management, favorites, and push notifications in one mobile experience.

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Global Objective

ChefKit is designed to help users discover recipes, manage ingredients, and engage with chefs through a responsive and localized experience.

Core outcomes:

• Personalized recipe discovery and recommendations
• Reliable favorites and chef follow workflows
• Ingredient-based inventory support
• Multilingual UX (English, Arabic, French)
• Push notifications for daily cooking engagement

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Tech Used

Frontend:

• Flutter
• flutter_bloc
• http
• sqflite
• firebase_messaging
• flutter_dotenv

Backend:

• Flask
• Supabase (database + auth)
• Firebase Admin SDK
• APScheduler
• Cloudinary

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Key Features

Home	Recipe Discovery	Search

Inventory	Chef Profiles	Profile

Sign In	OTP	Arabic

• Recipe discovery with trending and seasonal content
• Smart search and recommendations
• Ingredient inventory tracking
• Chef profiles with follow support
• Authentication flow with OTP
• Multilingual support (English, Arabic RTL, French)

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Core Functionality Status

Recipe Favorites (Fixed)

Users can:

• Save recipes via heart action
• View all favorites in dedicated page
• Sync favorites with backend
• Benefit from optimistic UI updates

Technical notes:

• Supabase users.user_favourite_recipees array
• Local cache for offline access
• Retry + error recovery handling

Chef Follow (Fixed)

Users can:

• Follow/unfollow chefs
• See follower counts update in real-time
• Sync changes with backend
• Get optimistic UI feedback

Technical notes:

• Supabase follows table
• Trigger-based follower count updates
• Proper auth checks and resilient rollback behavior

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Quick Start

Prerequisites:

• Flutter 3.x+
• Python 3.8+
• Node.js (Firebase tooling)
• Supabase account
• Firebase account

Local development:

# backend
./start_backend.sh

# app
./start_app_local.sh

Production app run:

./start_app_prod.sh

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Manual Setup

Backend:

cd backend
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

backend/.env:

SUPABASE_URL=your_supabase_url
SUPABASE_ANON_KEY=your_anon_key
SUPABASE_SERVICE_KEY=your_service_key

Start backend:

python app.py

Flutter app:

flutter pub get

Project root .env:

BASE_URL=http://localhost:8000
SUPABASE_URL=your_supabase_url
SUPABASE_ANON_KEY=your_anon_key

Run app:

flutter run --dart-define=BASE_URL=http://localhost:8000

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Project Structure

chefkit/
|- lib/
|  |- blocs/              # State management (BLoC)
|  |- domain/             # Models and repositories
|  |- views/              # UI screens and widgets
|  |- common/             # Shared utilities
|  |- l10n/               # Localization files
|- backend/
|  |- app.py              # Flask application
|  |- services.py         # Business logic
|  |- auth.py             # Authentication middleware
|  |- requirements.txt    # Python dependencies
|- assets/
|  |- images/             # App images
|  |- fonts/              # Custom fonts
|- test/                  # Unit and widget tests

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Testing

flutter test
flutter test integration_test/
flutter test test/authentication/auth_cubit_test.dart

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Troubleshooting

Backend not running:

lsof -ti:8000
lsof -ti:8000 | xargs kill -9
./start_backend.sh

Flutter build errors:

flutter clean
flutter pub get
flutter run

Favorites not saving:

1. Verify backend health: curl http://localhost:8000/health
2. Ensure user is authenticated (not guest)
3. Check backend logs
4. Confirm BASE_URL in .env

Chef follow issues:

1. Confirm backend is running
2. Verify authentication token
3. Review Supabase/backend logs

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Recent Fixes

January 10, 2026

• Fixed recipe favorites persistence
• Fixed chef follow functionality
• Improved retry and error handling
• Added optimistic UI updates
• Fixed favorites list refresh behavior
• Added localization coverage for favorites
• Added startup scripts for faster setup

Details: FIXES_APPLIED.md

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Known Issues

1. Recipe translations require DB availability (fallback to English)
2. Local cache can desync across devices (pull-to-refresh resolves)
3. Network is still required for follow/favorite operations

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Future Enhancements

• Offline queue for favorites sync
• Sync status indicator
• Pagination for large favorites
• Undo action for unfavorite
• Local caching of follow state
• Animated heart interaction
• Rich notifications for likes/follows
• Recipe social sharing
• Voice-guided cooking
• Meal planning calendar

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License

This project is proprietary software. All rights reserved.

Contributors

• Development Team - ChefKit

Support

For issues or questions, contact the development team.