Recipe library
Your entire collection, searchable and organised.
- Import from any URL with AI parsing
- Search by name, ingredient, or tag
- Collections, favourites, and Quick (≤30 min) tabs
- Card, list, grid, and compact views
● Self-hosted · Offline-first · MIT
v1.0.0
your kitchen, organised
Cook smarter.
Own your recipes.
Cegin is a personal recipe app with an AI cooking assistant named Chef Terry. Store recipes, plan meals, build shopping lists, scan your fridge, and cook step-by-step — on your phone or against a Docker server on your LAN. No cloud lock-in.
7+
Themes
0
Cloud lock-in
~69MB
Docker image
CEGIN
your kitchen, organised
Thai Green Curry
45 min · 4 servings
Sourdough Focaccia
3 hrs · Weekend bake
Shakshuka
25 min · Breakfast
Everything you need
Built for real kitchens
From importing recipes to cooking step-by-step, Cegin keeps your whole workflow in one place — with or without AI.
Cook mode
Hands-free step-by-step cooking when it matters.
- Large text, one step at a time
- Auto-detected timers with alarms
- Screen stays awake while you cook
- Mid-cook panic help from Terry
Meal planner
Plan breakfast through dessert for the whole week.
- Five meal slots per day
- Swipe between days, browse weeks ahead
- AI "Fill Week" with dietary goals
- Syncs to server for morning digests
Shopping list
From meal plan to supermarket, without the mental load.
- AI smart list from selected recipes
- Eight grocery categories
- Quick-add staples you buy often
- Swipe to delete, check off as you shop
Chef Terry
Your feline AI chef with actual kitchen context.
- Chat with saved conversation history
- Save AI recipes straight to your library
- Knows your meal plan and dietary profiles
- Quick prompts: plan week, use leftovers
Terry Vision
See what's in your kitchen, get recipe ideas back.
- Scan fridge, pantry, and freezer
- Ingredient identification from photos
- Recipe suggestions from what you have
- Perishable tracking for expiry alerts
Cookbook journal
Remember what you actually made.
- Log meals after cook mode
- Attach photos and notes
- Browse your cooking history
- Track streaks and top recipes
Dietary profiles
Cooking for a household with different needs.
- Add family members with restrictions
- AI audits recipes for compliance
- Meal plans respect everyone's needs
- Set up during onboarding or later
Offline-first
Recipes work even when the server drops out.
- Local cache mirrors your library
- Pending changes queue and sync later
- Works fully offline in local mode
- No AI toggle hides all smart features
See it in action
Inside the app
Real screenshots from the Android app — recipes, Terry, meal planning, and cook mode.
Tap any screenshot to view full resolution (1272px native).
Recipe library
Store, find, and refine every recipe
Add recipes however you like — paste a URL and let AI extract the ingredients and steps, type them in manually, or tidy messy imports with one tap. Every recipe supports images, tags, prep/cook times, servings, and personal notes.
- URL import Paste any recipe page link. AI pulls out title, ingredients, steps, and timing — no copy-paste marathon.
- Smart search & filters Search by name, ingredient, or tag with saved history. Filter tabs for favourites, quick meals (30 min or less), collections, and individual tags.
- Collections & organisation Group recipes into custom collections. Create collection tabs that appear alongside your standard filters.
- Recipe detail tools Scale servings, convert units (metric, US cups), estimate nutrition, generate mise en place prep steps, run dietary audits, and add missing ingredients to your shopping list.
- Step timers Timers are auto-detected from instruction text. Tap to start, get vibration and audio alerts when time's up.
RECIPE DETAIL
URL import
AI tidy
Scale servings
Unit convert
Nutrition est.
Prep steps
Diet audit
Favourites
Share
Notes
Multi-image
Ingredient checklist
Add a recipe
Import from URL, create manually, or ask Terry to generate one in chat.
Refine & organise
Tag it, add to a collection, scale for your household, convert to metric.
Cook or plan
Drop it on the meal planner, add to shopping list, or jump straight into cook mode.
Cook mode & journal
Designed for when your hands are messy
Cook mode strips away everything except the current step. Large readable text, automatic timer detection, and a screen that won't dim mid-sauté. When something goes wrong, Terry is one tap away.
- Step-by-step with timers Navigate forward and back through steps. Multiple timers can run simultaneously — each parsed from phrases like "25 minutes" or "1 hour 30 minutes".
- Mid-cook panic Something burned? Sauce split? Tell Terry what step you're on and what went wrong. He'll suggest fixes and adjust remaining steps on the fly.
- Adjust on the fly Need to substitute an ingredient or change the method? Terry recalculates the rest of the recipe without starting over.
- Cookbook journal When you finish, log the meal to your personal cookbook with an optional photo and notes. Build a history of what you actually cooked.
- Stats & streaks See your most-cooked recipes, total cooks, tag breakdowns, cooking streaks, and kitchen activity at a glance.
COOK MODE
One step at a time
Large text, minimal UI. Screen stays awake automatically.
Timers fire automatically
Detected from step text. Vibration + alarm when done. Background notifications too.
Ask Terry for help
"Fix mistake" and "Adjust cooking" buttons send your current step and problem to AI.
Log to cookbook
Record the cook, snap a photo of the result, add notes for next time.
Meal planner & shopping
From weekly plan to grocery run
Drag recipes onto any day and meal slot — breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner, or dessert. Let AI fill the whole week based on your goals, or build it manually. Then generate a consolidated shopping list in one tap.
- Weekly calendar Swipe between days, jump weeks forward and back. Tap any slot to pick from your saved recipes.
- AI Fill Week Choose a goal: balanced, high protein, weight loss, muscle gain, quick & easy, or variety. Terry plans around your dietary profiles and saved recipes.
- Smart shopping list Select recipes and AI consolidates ingredients into eight categories: dairy & eggs, meat & fish, fruit & veg, pantry, herbs & spices, sauces, frozen, and dry goods.
- Quick-add staples Save items you buy every week for one-tap adding. Customise categories and hide what you don't need.
- Server sync Meal plans sync to your self-hosted server so Terry's morning digest knows what's for dinner.
MEAL SLOTS
🥞 Breakfast
🥗 Lunch
🍿 Snack
🍝 Dinner
🍰 Dessert
FILL WEEK GOALS
⚖️ Balanced
💪 High protein
🔥 Weight loss
🏋️ Muscle gain
⚡ Quick & easy
🌍 Variety
SHOP CATEGORIES
Dairy & eggs
Meat & fish
Fruit & veg
Pantry
Herbs & spices
Sauces
Frozen
Dry goods
Meet your AI chef
Chef Terry 🐱
Terry isn't a generic chatbot — he's wired into your kitchen. He sees your saved recipes, this week's meal plan, shopping list, dietary profiles for everyone in the household, and what you scanned in the fridge. Conversations are saved, recipes can be pulled straight from chat, and you can tap to hear Terry speak his replies.
I burned the garlic at step 3. Can I still save this?
Meow — don't panic! Scrape out the burnt bits, add a fresh clove, and lower the heat. The rest of the dish is salvageable. Want me to adjust the timing?
What can I make with chicken, rice, and spinach?
You've got a great one-pot situation here. I'd suggest a lemon-garlic chicken and rice skillet — 35 minutes, uses what you have. Shall I add it to tonight's meal plan?
💬 Context-aware chat
🍳 Save recipes from chat
🆘 Mid-cook panic help
📋 AI meal plans
🛒 Smart shopping lists
📷 Fridge scanning
🔗 URL recipe import
🥗 Dietary audits
⚖️ Unit conversion
📊 Nutrition estimates
🔧 Adjust cooking live
📜 Conversation history
Terry Vision
Your fridge, decoded
Point your camera at what's actually in your kitchen. Terry Vision scans three zones — fridge, ambient pantry, and freezer — identifies ingredients, and suggests recipes you can make right now. Scanned items feed into perishable alerts so nothing rots quietly.
- Three scan zones Fridge interior, ambient counter/pantry, and freezer — each with its own photo and ingredient list.
- Recipe suggestions Terry combines everything you've scanned and suggests dishes that use what you already have, with one-tap save to your library.
- Perishable tracking Scanned items with expiry dates are monitored. The server sends alerts at 8 AM, 2 PM, and 8 PM when things are expiring.
- Persistent photos Scan photos are saved locally so you can re-check what's in the fridge without rescanning every time.
SCAN ZONES
🧊 Fridge
Snap the inside of your fridge. AI lists every ingredient it can see.
🍽️ Ambient
Counter, pantry shelves, or table — oils, spices, tins, and produce.
❄️ Freezer
What's frozen? Terry reads labels and packaging.
Get suggestions
Combined ingredient list → recipe ideas → save any you like.
Proactive alerts
Terry reaches out before you forget
Push notifications run from your self-hosted server on a schedule. No third-party recipe cloud required. APK builds only — not available in Expo Go.
8:00 AM · Daily
Morning Digest
Terry checks today's meal plan and tells you what's for dinner, what to prep ahead, and anything you should know before the day gets away from you.
8 AM · 2 PM · 8 PM
Perishable Alerts
Scanned fridge items with expiry dates are checked every six hours. Get warned before ingredients go bad — not after.
During cook mode
Timer alerts
Step timers vibrate, play an alarm sound, and send a background notification when time's up — even if you switch apps.
Your server
Self-hosted cron
Scheduled jobs run inside your Docker container. Toggle morning digest and perishable alerts independently in Settings.
Make it yours
Themes, modes, and control
Cegin ships with seven colour palettes plus Material You on supported Android devices. Switch between dark, light, and system mode. Prefer no AI at all? One toggle hides Terry, vision, smart lists, meal planning AI, and every other smart feature.
- 7 built-in themes Open Flame (default), Ocean, Forest, Berry, Midnight, Sakura, and pure-black OLED with eight accent colour options.
- Material You On Android 12+, Cegin reads your wallpaper accent colour and generates a matching palette automatically.
- No AI mode Hide all AI features and use Cegin as a straightforward recipe manager. Switch back anytime.
- Custom AI providers In local mode, configure your own text and vision providers with any OpenAI-compatible endpoint. Discover available models from the app.
- Onboarding wizard First launch walks you through features, server vs local mode, dietary profiles, theme pick, and permissions.
THEME PICKER
APPEARANCE
PALETTE
OLED ACCENT
SETUP WIZARD STEPS
Welcome & features tour
See what Cegin can do before you configure anything.
Pick your mode
Self-hosted server, local with your own API keys, or no AI at all.
Dietary profiles
Add household members and their dietary needs for Terry to respect.
Theme & permissions
Choose your look. Enable notifications and camera for the full experience.
Two ways to run
Your data, your rules
Run a self-hosted server on your LAN, or keep everything on your phone. Switch anytime from Settings — no account needed.
Server mode
Central recipes with server-side AI. Works across multiple devices on your home network. Phone talks directly to Docker over Wi-Fi.
- Dockerized Node.js + SQLite (~69MB image)
- No login — just enter your server URL
- Push notifications and scheduled cron jobs
- Multi-image recipe support and collections
- API keys stored as Docker secrets, not in the image
- Offline cache with automatic sync when back online
- Plain SQLite backup — copy the .db file anytime
Local mode
Zero server required. Everything stored in SQLite on your phone with direct AI provider calls from the device.
- Recipes work completely offline
- API keys in OS secure storage (Keystore / Keychain)
- Custom text and vision providers in Settings
- Discover models from any OpenAI-compatible endpoint
- Great for testing, travel, or when Docker isn't an option
- Backed up with your normal phone backups
Bring your own AI
Not locked into any provider
Change text and vision providers independently. Text uses any OpenAI-compatible API; vision defaults to Gemini but can be swapped.
DeepSeek
deepseek-chat
Groq
llama-3.1-70b
OpenAI
gpt-4o-mini
OpenRouter
Any model
Gemini
Vision / scan
Ollama
Run locally
Three steps
Up and running in minutes
Server mode takes three steps. Local mode skips straight to step 2 with your own API keys.
01
Start the server
Copy .env.example, add API keys to secrets/, and launch Docker on your LAN machine.
cd server
cp .env.example .env
docker compose up -d --build
02
Install the app
Download the APK from GitHub Releases and install on your Android phone. Push notifications require the APK — not Expo Go.
Get APK v1.0.003
Connect over Wi-Fi
In Settings, enter your server's LAN IP — not localhost. Phone and server must be on the same network.
http://192.168.1.42:3000
No cloud required
How it fits together
Your phone talks directly to your Docker container. AI calls go to whichever provider you configure — never through a Cegin-operated cloud.
Android app
Recipes, Terry, cook mode
Your LAN
Wi-Fi, no internet needed for recipes
Docker server
Express + SQLite · port 3000
Your AI provider
DeepSeek, Groq, Ollama, Gemini…
Local mode: phone stores recipes in SQLite and calls AI providers directly — Docker box optional.
Built for self-hosters
Security by design
Your keys and recipes stay on hardware you control.
Docker secrets
API keys mount at /run/secrets/ — never in image layers or docker inspect output.
Non-root container
Server runs as the node user with a 512MB RAM and 1 CPU resource limit.
No accounts
The app connects by server URL only. You control who can reach it via your network.
Plain SQLite backup
Recipes live in a single recipes.db file on a Docker volume — copy it anytime.
Secure key storage
Local mode stores API keys in Android Keystore / iOS Keychain with hardware-backed encryption.
Bring your own AI
No vendor lock-in. Point at any OpenAI-compatible endpoint or run Ollama entirely offline.
What's new
Changelog
Active development — follow releases on GitHub.
v1.1.0
In progressStarted June 17, 2026
- Redesigned Settings with clearer sections and icons
- Model picker — discover and switch AI models from the app
- Health & Diet step added to setup wizard
- Permissions onboarding for notifications and camera
- Setup wizard AI step with "Find Available Models"
v1.0.0
ReleasedJune 16, 2026
- Initial release — recipes, Terry, Terry Vision, meal planner
- Smart shopping list, cook mode, push notifications
- 7 themes + Material You, offline-first sync
- APK on GitHub Releases, Docker image on Docker Hub
Common questions
FAQ & troubleshooting
Quick answers for the things that trip people up on first setup.
Can't reach the server from my phone
Use your machine's LAN IP address (e.g. 192.168.1.42:3000), not localhost. Make sure the phone and server are on the same Wi-Fi and check your firewall allows port 3000.
AI features aren't working
Check TEXT_* and VISION_* in .env and that secrets/ files exist with mode 600. Test the server at /api/health and /api/ai/status from a browser on your LAN.
Push notifications don't work
Notifications require a native APK build. They don't work in Expo Go. Build with npx expo run:android or install the release APK.
My database disappeared after a Docker rebuild
Make sure the cegin-data Docker volume exists. Data is stored on the volume, not inside the container image. Back up with docker run --rm -v cegin-data:/data …
Do I need a server?
No. Local mode stores everything on your phone and calls AI providers directly. Server mode adds multi-device sync, server-side AI, and push notification cron jobs.
Which AI provider should I use?
DeepSeek is a good default for text (cheap, capable). Gemini works well for vision/fridge scanning. Or run Ollama locally for fully offline chat — pair it with Gemini for vision only.
Is my data sent to Cegin's servers?
No. Cegin has no cloud backend. Recipes stay on your phone or your Docker server. AI requests go only to the provider you configure (DeepSeek, OpenAI, Ollama, etc.).
How do I back up my recipes?
Server mode: copy recipes.db from the Docker volume. Local mode: data is in the app's SQLite and backs up with normal phone backups.
Get started
Download Cegin
Install the Android APK from GitHub Releases, enter your server address in Settings, and start cooking. Or skip the server entirely and run in local mode with your own API keys. Docker image available on Docker Hub.
cd server && docker compose up -d --build