tectec documentation

tectec is a recipe app for people who cook. It captures recipes from anywhere (websites, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, TikTok, photos), turns them into structured ingredients and steps, and helps you while you cook. Recipes you share are readable without an account.

Opening tectec.app takes you to the welcome page when you're signed out, or your library when you're signed in. The welcome page, documentation, and privacy policy are also available without signing in.

The welcome page shows sample screens from the app, an interactive pricing slider and the FAQ in English or French. Open a screenshot for a closer look. Its English content is also available without JavaScript. You can pause animations in the footer; reduced-motion preferences are respected automatically.

Getting started with Olive

After signing in and choosing a username, new accounts start a conversation with Olive. Four cards guide you through units and temperatures, optional nutrition estimates, credits and importing your first recipes. These scripted cards use no credits. Your choices and progress are saved to your account, so another device resumes the same conversation. Answered cards fold to one line; tap one to read it again. Olive opens by herself once; if you close her, setup in her header brings the guide back.

Choose Find a recipe to tell Olive what you would like to cook, or I have a link to paste links from Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest or recipe websites. Normal Olive replies and imports then use credits. Choose Set up later on a question, or Skip on the credits card, to leave the guide with your current preferences; you can change them in settings.

A dish name such as “cupcakes” is enough to start looking. Olive shows recipe cards you can open to preview, then choose save to library to import. Searching or closing a preview does not import anything. A message that contains nothing but links starts those imports directly: no Olive reply, and no credits spent on one.

Open tips in Olive’s header to discover cooking from a recipe, the share menu, the quick actions, photo imports, editing with Olive, books and sharing, meal planning, search, the browser extension, Cookidoo and MCP connections. Closing a tip makes room for another one next time. After you have opened them all, the least recently opened tips return.

Tips cards also appear in your library, after the first recipe and then with at least 20 recipe cards between them. Tap a title to open a short explanation from Olive and, when relevant, a button to the feature. Opening a tip moves it behind the others for your account, so the next visit shows another one. Tips use no credits and do not appear in search results or filtered views. Choose Hide all tips in the modal to remove them across your devices.

Language

The website follows your browser's supported language. Choose App language in settings to save an English or French preference in this browser. Changing it reloads the page. The iOS and Android apps follow your device's locale automatically and have no language selector.

Recipes keep their own source language, detected on extraction and stored in the recipe's Recipe language field. You can edit its language code (such as fr, en, or pt-BR). Older recipes can have an unknown language. Switching interface language does not translate recipes. Counts, packets, spoon measures, source wording and decimal conventions are retained; a packet with no stated weight never acquires an invented one. Verified package quantities can scale without a weight conversion. Printed fractions such as 1½ also scale correctly. Correct an old inaccurate extraction in the editor or re-import its source.

Importing a recipe

Paste a link into the search bar, type /import followed by a link, or use the olive button's import actions. These actions keep you on the feed, where a card shows the import's progress. Its title and image appear as soon as the source provides them, then the saved recipe replaces the card: tap it to open. Imports run in the background and save themselves: leave the page or quit the app mid-import and the recipe still lands in your library. Pending imports reappear when you return to the feed. Failed imports stay in the feed until you remove them, including after closing or reloading the app. Tap a failed card to see what went wrong and choose Remove, or Retry when the failure allows another attempt. A final outcome, such as a source with no recipe, only offers removal and any available source or create link. The source URL and author are preserved.

The import from url sheet and the browser extension check whether you already imported a page, whatever variant of its link you use (tracking parameters, www., a social post's share link). They offer to open your newest copy, or to import it again as a new recipe. Archived recipes don't count. Sending an imported recipe to Cookidoo keeps it recognizable by its original source link.

In Olive, you can ask to import several links in one message, including /import followed by the links. A message made only of links works the same way and costs no credits for the reply. Olive acknowledges the batch and keeps the conversation open. Each link starts a separate background import, with progress in the feed and a reference in the conversation. The feed also picks up imports started from another device or a connected assistant while you leave it open.

Starting an import keeps Olive open if you are already chatting, including on a phone. This also applies when saving a search result or importing through a link or photo sheet.

Websites: works on most recipe blogs and aggregators. Facebook and X aren't supported (the recipe text isn't in the page); import the recipe-site link or a screenshot instead.
Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, and TikTok: tectec reads captions, descriptions and comments, follows recipe links, and uses available TikTok subtitles. For a video post, it first checks whether those written sources contain the ingredients and enough instructions to cook the recipe. If they do, it imports without downloading or watching the video. If essential amounts or steps are missing, such as shaping shown only in the reel, it tries the video: Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest clips up to four minutes, YouTube videos up to thirty. If neither source provides a recipe, it hands you the link to browse. For image pins and TikTok photo posts without a usable recipe link, it also reads recipe text written on the image.
Photos: a cookbook page, a handwritten card, a screenshot. Attach from Olive's quick actions or paste into the bar. Send up to four at once and tectec works out what they are: pages of the same recipe (a two-page spread, ingredients on one page and the method on another) come in as one recipe, while a stack of separate recipe cards comes in as one recipe each. If a photo is not a full recipe, the card explains the outcome and offers a blank form so you can create the recipe yourself. Photos attached in the chat are kept for a day.
Text: type or paste into the new-recipe screen; structure and formatting are handled on save.
From another app (mobile): with the tectec app installed, tectec appears in the system share menu. Share a link or photos from any app — the browser, Instagram, your gallery — and the import starts right away.
From an AI assistant: connect Claude Code, Codex or another MCP client to your account and ask it to import a link, a photo or pasted text. See connecting an AI assistant.

Olive shows the same import cards as the feed, with the title and image appearing as they become available. Consecutive cards share a horizontal carousel, including in conversation history. Completed imports show the saved recipe cards in that same row. Tap a failed card in Olive to open the explanation and its Remove or Retry actions.

When an import started in Olive fails, the explanation is also saved in that conversation, including if it couldn't start. Imports that stop making progress for over an hour are detected automatically and become failed cards you can retry.

The browser extension

Install it from the Chrome Web Store or Firefox Add-ons; those are the only two browsers it runs in. On any recipe page, click the olive icon and hit Import this recipe. The page is captured from your own tab, so it works behind logins, paywalls, and cookie walls that tectec's fetcher can't reach. The import runs on the server: close the popup or the tab, and reopen the popup later for progress and a link to the saved recipe. It uses your existing tectec session; Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, and TikTok tabs behave exactly like /import-ing the link. On a page you already imported, the popup links to that recipe and offers Import again.

Connecting an AI assistant

tectec is an MCP server (Model Context Protocol, the standard AI assistants use to work with outside tools). Claude Code, Codex, Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and any other assistant that supports remote MCP servers with sign-in can search, read, import, create and edit your recipes and books.

Add this address to your assistant as a remote (HTTP) MCP server:

https://tectec.app/api/mcp

No client ID, secret or API key is needed: the assistant registers itself. Then start the sign-in from the assistant. Your browser opens tectec, where you sign in if needed, check which app is asking and what it wants to do, and choose connect. The connection lasts 30 days, then the assistant asks you to connect again.

Claude Code:

claude mcp add --transport http tectec https://tectec.app/api/mcp

Then run /mcp inside Claude Code, pick tectec and authenticate.

Codex:

codex mcp add tectec --url https://tectec.app/api/mcp
codex mcp login tectec

Claude and ChatGPT: add a custom connector with the address above and leave the client ID and secret fields empty.

Read the consent page before you approve. It shows the name the app gave itself and the address it will return to once connected. tectec cannot check that a name is honest, so look at the return address: for a tool on your computer it is localhost or 127.0.0.1, for a web assistant it is that assistant's own website. Only approve a connection you started yourself, a moment ago. Two setups are pre-registered and show as verified: add --client-id tectec-claude-code to the Claude Code command, or --oauth-client-id tectec-codex to the Codex one.

Once connected, the assistant can do what you allowed on the consent page:

find recipes in your library by title, #tag or @author, and read any recipe you own or can see through a shared book
import recipes from links, photos or pasted text; these imports use your credits like any other import
save a recipe, or replace one of yours, exactly as written, with no AI formatting or enrichment; this uses no credits but counts toward your recipe limit. Editing that recipe later in the app runs the usual enrichment
list your books, create and edit the ones you manage, and add your recipes to them

It never sees your sign-in code and cannot change your account, plan or other connected apps. Disconnect it at any time in settings under connected apps; access stops immediately.

What happens on save

Formatting: titles, descriptions, and step text are normalized without changing the meaning.
Ingredient parsing: each line becomes a quantity, unit, and name (200g spaghetti → 200 / g / spaghetti), keeping the original text for display. Section headers like Sauce: become group labels.
Resolution: parsed names are matched to a shared catalog with densities and average unit weights. This is what powers unit conversion and clean scaling.
Step linking: each step learns which ingredients it references, rendered as subtle highlights. This pass runs in the background and lands a few seconds after save.
Nutrition: only if you turned it on in settings, and only for your own recipes. See below.

Cooking a recipe

Cook mode: tap cook mode below the recipe title to read one step at a time in larger text, with linked ingredient quantities inline. Use next step and the back arrow to move through the method, then finish cooking to return to the recipe. Closing cook mode keeps your place until you leave the recipe. Your serving, unit and temperature adjustments carry through.
Scale: change the serving count and every quantity recomputes, sensibly even for things like "1 egg". A recipe whose yield is pieces says so ("makes 36 nuggets") and scales in those pieces.
Convert: choose metric or imperial and °C or °F in settings. Each ingredient has its own preferred measure: nutmeg uses teaspoons, while butter, baking soda and baking powder use grams in metric. The catalog's density converts between weight and volume. Amounts below 10 g keep one decimal. Counts (eggs, buns, cloves) keep their measure. Tap or hover an underlined amount for alternatives: a spoon of nutmeg shows grams and millilitres; butter shown in grams offers its preferred cooking volume, such as tablespoons, plus millilitres. Without density, only the known equivalent is shown. The amount beside an ingredient's first mention in a step follows the same conversion and scaling as the list.
Temperatures: the step enrichment marks every oven, pan and liquid temperature with the scale the source means, even when it only says "425 degrees", and the page shows it in your unit with the source value a hover away. Appliance programs written as settings ("3 min / 120°C / speed 2") stay as written.
Scratch: swipe a step or ingredient right to strike it through while you cook. Progress is per-recipe and per-device, remembered across sessions.
Pull a line into the chat: swipe a step or ingredient left to attach it as context, add as many as you want, then ask ("can I swap this?"). The chips clear when you send.
Ask Olive: she always knows which recipe you have open, so "how do I scale this to 6?" needs no explanation of which recipe you mean.
Screen stays on: while a recipe is open the screen won't dim or lock, so you can cook with messy hands.

Offline on mobile

The iOS and Android apps keep recipes on your phone so they stay readable without a connection. Every recipe you open is saved, and so is the first page of your library. Your grocery list is saved whenever the app is connected. Open a recipe's three-dot menu to see available offline once it has been saved. Books and menus have a save for offline button that also saves their recipes, and those are never removed automatically.

In Settings → offline storage, choose how much space saved recipes may use, from 10 MB to 1 GB. The default is 250 MB, enough for thousands of recipes. When the space is used up, the recipes you have not opened for the longest are removed first. The switch turns offline storage off and removes the saved copies from this device; changes that have not synced yet are discarded after confirmation. The setting is saved on this device.

While offline, you can browse saved recipes, search their titles and tags, scale quantities, convert units and scratch off ingredients and steps. Your grocery list stays available: check or uncheck items, add items and remove items you added manually. Changes are saved on your phone and sync when you reconnect. Photos are not downloaded for offline use; an image that cannot load is hidden.

If another device changed the list or recipe, syncing pauses and shows saved changes need review. Use latest version asks you to confirm before discarding pending changes for that list or recipe and loading the server version. Cooking progress still expires after three days; grocery changes left unsynced for more than 30 days require review.

Sign in and let downloads finish before going offline. Imports, Olive, recipe editing, creating menus and generating grocery lists need a connection. Shared content remains readable from its saved copy while disconnected; access is checked again when connected. A revoked session requires signing in again.

Offline data stays in the app's private storage on this device. Signing out clears it and asks for confirmation if changes have not synced. If storage is unavailable, sign-out and account deletion still complete, but saved copies may remain on the device. They cannot be opened without signing in again. Uninstalling the app also removes them. Offline data and pending changes are excluded from device backups.

Extensions

Optional features, off by default, toggled at tectec.app/settings.

nutrition

Turn on show nutrition in settings and a calories figure joins the time and serving count at the top of each recipe. Tap it for the full panel.

What the numbers are: calories plus the three macronutrients ("macros") that carry them, protein, carbs, and fat, and fiber alongside. Protein and carbs carry 4 calories per gram, fat carries 9, and fiber carries almost none, so the calorie figure is close to the sum of the rest.
Per portion or per 100 g: switch at the top of the panel. Your choice is remembered on this device.
Percentages: shown in the per-portion view, as a share of a day. Calories, carbs, fat, and fiber use standard reference intakes. Protein uses your body weight if you set one in settings, at 1.2 g per kg; without it we use a generic 50 g.
Where the numbers come from: each ingredient line is measured when it can be, its weight times the per-100 g values in tectec's ingredient catalog, and the recipe total is the sum. Lines that can't be measured (a vague amount, an ingredient the catalog doesn't know yet) are estimated by Olive and marked with a ≈. If the recipe text states its own nutrition facts, those are used as written instead.
How it adds up: the panel has a details toggle listing every line's weight and calories, so you can see exactly how the total was built. Lines marked ≈ were estimated rather than measured.
The ≈ mark: when more than half of the recipe, by lines or by calories, comes from estimates, the whole figure shows as ≈ approximate. Measured recipes carry no mark.
Total weight: the panel shows the estimated weight of the finished dish, which is what the per-100 g figures divide by. Cooking changes it, a braise loses water and pasta gains it, so it is a guess. Tap the weight to correct it, and everything rescales. Calories per portion don't move, since the food is the same. The one exception: when the recipe states its facts per 100 g, those printed numbers stay fixed and the portion figures follow the weight instead.
When it recomputes: after each ingredient parse, the first time you open a recipe with the setting on, and again when you change the ingredients. Editing the title or the serving count doesn't trigger a rerun. If it ever fails, the panel has a retry.

cookidoo

Connects tectec to Cookidoo, the Thermomix recipe platform. Both directions go through the browser extension for Chrome or Firefox (see above), because Cookidoo only shows full recipes to your logged-in browser:

Import: open a recipe on Cookidoo and hit Import this recipe in the extension. If you already imported it, the extension offers to open that recipe or to import it again.
Send from tectec: turn on Cookidoo under settings → extensions, then choose export to Cookidoo from a recipe's ⋯ menu. Cookidoo opens with the tectec panel inside the page, and the recipe is converted and sent. Sign in to Cookidoo first: the conversion only starts once the extension sees you signed in. If the extension doesn't answer, the sheet explains how to install it or allow its Cookidoo access.
Send from Cookidoo: click the tectec extension on Cookidoo and choose Send tectec recipes to Cookidoo. In the panel, search your tectec recipes and choose Add to Cookidoo or Update on Cookidoo. Creating recipes requires an active Cookidoo subscription.
Linked recipes: tectec remembers the Cookidoo recipe on import and export. Sending a linked created recipe again updates that copy, and costs no credits when the recipe hasn't changed since its last conversion. A Cookidoo catalogue recipe gets its own editable copy when sent back. Edits do not sync automatically. Links belong to your tectec account; use the same Cookidoo account when updating them.

Install the latest extension and allow its Cookidoo site permissions for the automatic handoff. Reload tectec after installing or updating the extension.

Reverse-rotation steps stay as text with a warning to set the machine by hand. Gentle-stir speeds and Varoma temperatures also need manual settings.

tectec never sees your Cookidoo password or session. Everything Cookidoo-side happens in your own browser tab.

Editing and archiving

From the ⋯ menu on a recipe:

Edit: the add-recipe form, pre-filled. Your text is kept exactly as written (the tidy-up pass only runs on brand-new recipes); ingredients are re-resolved and steps re-linked on save. Changes show inline as a diff: old text struck through, new text in green.
Archive: hides the recipe from your library and search. It isn't deleted.

Editing with Olive

Ask Olive for a change in plain language ("make this vegan", "halve the salt", "trop de texte"). When shortening a recipe, Olive keeps quantities, temperatures and cooking times. The recipe opens in the editor and changes appear live in green. Tap the green text to show or hide its previous wording. Removed lines stay collapsed until you tap their label. On mobile, the chat closes so you can see the recipe. Olive stays in the same conversation.

You can ask to change a particular ingredient, step or field. Olive limits the edit to the relevant parts and keeps the surrounding recipe available for context. Shortening keeps the existing steps. Moving an ingredient addition between steps updates both steps while preserving their other cooking instructions. Rewriting a step does not give the editor permission to delete it. Review the new wording before saving, especially when shortening cooking instructions.

The form and save button pause while Olive works. If the editor returns an incomplete response, Olive tries once to finish the remaining changes. Press Stop to take over: completed changes stay in the draft, and unfinished text is discarded. The same applies if editing fails after that attempt. If it fails before completing any changes, the draft stays as it was and you can ask Olive to try again. Scroll freely, then use Follow edits to return to the changing section. Nothing is saved until you press save. You can review, adjust by hand, or ask Olive for another change first.

She can also write a recipe from scratch: ask from the home screen ("make me a vegan lasagna") and she opens a fresh draft to review and save. While editing, she can search the web or read a URL you give her to inform a change.

Searching and tagging

Your search text and filters stay in place when you open a recipe and return to the library, including with your phone's back button. Clear the search bar to see the full library again.

Recipes carry tags, short slugs like weeknight or pasta, and the home grid is organized by them. In the search bar:

# filters the grid by tag, with your existing tags suggested as you type.
/ opens shortcuts: /import <link>, /image, /olive <question>.
Press and hold the olive button (or right-click it) for the quick actions: new recipe, create book, create menu, import from url or photos, and groceries. The same actions greet you in an empty Olive conversation.
Anything else filters recipes by title and tag, or asks Olive if it reads like a question.

Olive

Olive is the chat agent. The panel opens from the olive button in the bottom-right, which stays in the same spot on every screen: on your phone it sits in the bottom bar as one more tab on the library screens and floats on its own elsewhere. It follows you around the app; a small pill above the input shows what she currently sees ("viewing" the recipe you have open, or "editing" the one in the form) so you know what "make this vegan" will apply to. While she works on something that needs the screen, the panel steps aside into a progress pill; a dot on the button means she finished something while you were elsewhere. Your messages stay in one conversation across devices, including after a long break. Load older messages to look back. Olive uses recent exchanges and a compact memory when replying, and can search earlier messages for details.

A typing bubble appears as soon as you send a message and stays until Olive starts replying.

When you switch recipes or menus, Olive uses the current screen for references such as "this recipe". Older exchanges remain in your history even when they are left out of a reply's context.

If Olive's AI model rejects a request because it is busy, Olive immediately tries an alternate model once. Stop cancels the request. Completed actions and changes already streamed into your draft are kept.

When a photo import cannot find a complete recipe, Create with Olive uses that import's photos, even if you have chatted about something else since.

She can:

Search your library: "do I have something with chickpeas?" returns matching recipes as cards.
Search the web: she prefers actual recipe pages over listicles and videos; preview a result and save it through the normal import pipeline.
Import for you: "import these three links", "save the first one", or attach recipe photos and ask to import them.
Answer questions about the recipe you're viewing: substitutions, scaling, technique, timing.
Write or edit recipes: see "editing with Olive".
Plan menus: find a menu, create one, or change its dishes, date and meal.
Keep the grocery list: add menus to it, apply one of its suggestions, check things off, add or remove your own items, or clear it.
Look up ingredient data: densities, unit weights, and aliases from the shared catalog.

Every library result really is in your library and every web result is a real URL; she doesn't invent them, and she never changes anything without you asking.

Each reply has a thumbs up and a thumbs down under it. The rating stays with the conversation, and replies marked not helpful are reviewed to find where she goes wrong.

Every recipe has a private share link (share.tectec.app/r/<your-username>/<short-code>) that renders a clean public view anyone can read without an account. Signed-in readers get a "save to library" button. Remove the share and the link 404s. Nothing is public until you share it.

If a shared recipe cannot load because of a connection or server problem, choose "try again". A removed share is shown as unavailable.

Books

A book is a collection of recipes shared with specific people; every member gets their own copy to read and cook from. Roles:

owner: created the book. Exactly one, can't be removed, and only the owner can delete the book.
admin: manages members and invites, renames the book, changes the cover.
reader: reads and cooks, doesn't manage.

Create a book from Olive's quick actions (press and hold the olive button), or name a new one right inside "add to book" on a recipe; the recipe lands in it in the same gesture. Add your own recipes from the ⋯ menu, or from the book page itself with + add recipe (owner and admins), which opens a searchable picker of your library. Only the recipe's owner can add it, and the recipe moves out of your home grid and lives under the book.

A recipe someone else added appears in your own grid only after you open it; until then, the book tile is the way in, showing an unread dot when there's something new. Cooking progress in a shared recipe is yours alone. Adding a recipe or changing the title or cover floats the book to the top of everyone's grid.

Each book gets a cover color or image. Invite people by email: the link works for whoever opens it (treat it like a shared secret), expires after seven days, and creates an account if needed. Owners and admins can see who hasn't accepted yet by tapping the member count on the book page. To remove recipes or members, tap Edit on the book page, then the − badge, then Done. A removed recipe returns to its owner's grid, and members who only had it through the book lose access. If the owner archives a recipe that's in a book, it disappears for everyone until restored.

menus and meal planning

A menu brings together the recipes for one meal. On desktop, books and menus sit at the right of the header; the tectec logo returns to your feed. On your phone, the feed, books, menus and groceries share one bar with the search field at the bottom of those screens, with the olive button at its right end. Press and hold the olive button for the quick actions: new recipe, create book, create menu, the imports and groceries.

Menus opens as a calendar starting today. On desktop it shows one week, the seven days side by side starting on Monday, or Sunday if you choose that in settings, with each day's menus as cards under its date. On your phone the days follow one another with more weeks as you scroll. Plan a meal on a day, or + new menu at the top, picks a recipe from your library and creates the menu with it. Use the arrows or date picker to move through the calendar, today to come back, or the toggle at the top to see a list instead. That row stays at the top while you scroll. Undated menus stay under for another day.

A menu is an ordered set of recipes, with a name, an optional date and a meal (breakfast, lunch or dinner). Leave the name empty and the menu gets a short one of its own a moment after you save, made up from its dishes and the moment ("lazy sunday roast", "noodle rescue tuesday"); rename it whenever you like, and a name you type first wins. Clearing the name asks for a new one. To change the date, tap it on the menu page and pick a day. For the rest, tap edit: change the name or meal, add recipes from your library, including recipes in books shared with you, or remove them, then save menu at the bottom, next to delete this menu. Cancel leaves the menu as it was. Adding a recipe outside the editor saves right away. A recipe's own page has add to menu in its options, which picks an existing menu or starts a new one. Editing a menu never changes its recipes. If a recipe in a menu is archived or you lose access to it, the menu keeps its name and marks it unavailable. You can duplicate a menu for another occasion, or delete it while keeping the recipes. Menus also appear in your feed and match the :menu search filter.

Olive can find, read, create, edit and delete menus when you ask, and she can add menus to your groceries or tidy the list. On a menu page, Olive knows which menu you're viewing. Recipe and menu timelines will come later.

groceries

Groceries is one ongoing list. Open it from the olive button's quick actions, or from its own tab while the list contains items. A menu's add to groceries button adds its ingredients at the recipe's own serving count. For a bigger shop, shop this week on the calendar covers the next seven days from today whatever the calendar shows; for other days, add each menu from its own page. The bar at the bottom of the list asks Olive.

A dedicated AI agent combines the ingredients into shopping groups and offers optional suggestions when a simpler purchase would need your decision. Exact equivalents can combine straight away; substitutions stay separate until you choose apply suggestion. Accepted choices stay with this shopping list when you add more menus. Each item is one line written the way you would write it yourself, quantity first ("700 g carrots", "1 yellow onion"). The app checks that every ingredient is accounted for once, adds up the quantities from the recipes itself, and rejects a line whose number does not match that total. Open an item with the chevron at its right to see the total and the recipe lines behind it. Swipe an item right to tick it off, or left to remove one you added yourself. Bought items tuck away under their section's n done chevron; tap it to see them again. A section whose items are all bought is struck through like them. AI combination uses tectec credits.

Re-adding a menu refreshes its contribution without counting it twice. Duplicate a menu if you're cooking it again and need ingredients for both occasions. Editing a menu or recipe does not silently change your current shopping list; add the menu again when you want to refresh it. Items you add yourself remain on the list. Bought checkmarks stay when the grouped item and its amount are unchanged; a changed amount needs checking again.

Check off items as you shop, add anything else at the bottom, then export to share or download a text list. Clear list starts a fresh basket after confirmation. Exporting keeps your list, and clearing it keeps your recipes and menus. If another window changes the list while AI is working, the stale result cannot overwrite it.

Connected MCP clients can list, read, create, edit and delete menus with the menu permissions shown during connection. With grocery permissions they can read and export the list, ask the combination agent to add menus or apply a suggestion, and make the same manual changes you can: check items, add or remove your own, dismiss a suggestion, or clear the list. Existing connections need a new authorization to gain these permissions.

Notifications

The notifications tab lists activity in your books: someone added a recipe, someone joined. Each entry links to the book or recipe it's about; opening it marks it read. Opening a book clears its notifications and its unread dot. Clear entries one at a time or all at once; read ones are pruned after seven days.

Settings

At tectec.app/settings:

Profile: your username and sign-in email, displayed as read-only values.
Unit system: metric (g, ml) or imperial (oz, fl oz).
Temperature unit: Celsius or Fahrenheit.
Week start: Monday or Sunday, the first column of the menu calendar.
Keep screen on: whether the screen stays awake while a recipe is open. On by default; stored per device.
Extensions: optional features, off by default. Show nutrition adds calories and macros to your recipes; when it is off nothing is ever computed. Cookidoo adds export to Cookidoo to the recipe ⋯ menu. The browser extension imports from and sends to Cookidoo whether it is on or not.
Connected apps: the AI assistants connected to your account through MCP and what each one may do. Disconnect any of them here. See connecting an AI assistant.
Body weight: optional, and only used to set your daily protein target. Stored with your account.
Conversation history: opens your single conversation with Olive. Messages stay available across devices; load older messages to look further back. Closing Olive keeps the conversation.
Usage and plan: what you have used this month and what is left. See credits and plans.
Delete account: immediate and permanent. Recipes, photos, books you own, memberships, conversations, and share links are all removed. Asks for confirmation first. An anonymous signup timestamp remains for signup statistics, with no link to your account.

Credits and plans

All plans are free while we test pricing. Any euro amounts shown are proposed prices, and your feedback helps us evaluate them. You won't be charged for using tectec or moving to a higher plan during this test.

Credits measure AI usage. Importing a recipe, talking to Olive, and optional AI formatting and enrichment use credits. Browsing, cooking, sharing, and books do not use credits.

Your plan gives you a number of credits each month. They reset on the same day of the month you signed up, and they do not carry over, so a quiet month does not bank credits for a busy one. The welcome credits you receive at signup are the exception: what you have not spent stays available after each reset, and your monthly credits are used before them.

Typical credit usage:

Importing a recipe from a link: typically 12 to 20 credits, depending on the page and on the enrichment you enabled, such as nutrition. Reading a video can cost more. A complete caption, description or subtitle transcript avoids that video call; checking incomplete text and then reading the video uses credits for both calls. Photo imports and batches can also use more.
A message to Olive: typically 5 to 15 credits. Olive uses recent exchanges and a compact memory, and searches older messages when needed. Searches, recipe edits and occasional memory updates can cost more than a short answer. An explicit import uses only the sources you send for that import.
AI grocery combination and optional enrichment: variable, depending on the work involved.

Pinterest, TikTok, and Instagram imports also include 0.75 credits per Bright Data post record, charged when the record is delivered. Cached content adds no retrieval charge; any new AI work still uses credits. Replaying a fully cached recipe is free. YouTube imports have no Bright Data surcharge.

Every model call an import makes is charged for what it used, including a call that decides the source holds no recipe. While an import runs, a few credits are set aside for its next call and released when it finishes, so several imports can run at once without overspending your balance. An import that runs out of credits partway stops and says so on its card.

Statistics shows import attempts by source, including imports started from a link, the extension, or Olive. It also counts paid content retrievals separately. A cached import can appear in those activity counts without a credit charge.

You can still save and edit recipes by hand when you run out of credits. Adding a recipe remains subject to your plan's recipe limit. When credits are available, a save or edit can also trigger AI formatting or background enrichment that uses credits. Without credits, that optional AI work is skipped.

The free plan gives you 200 welcome credits at signup plus 25 credits a month, and is limited to 20 recipes. Paid plans start at €2.25 with 500 monthly credits and unlimited recipes; each further €2 adds 500 credits, up to €6.25 for 1,500 credits, and above that you request the allowance in the app. Paid prices include the €0.25 processing fee. These are proposed prices; all plans remain free during the pricing test. New allowances apply at signup and monthly renewal, and credits already granted for the current period are kept. Accounts already on the retired €1.25 plan keep their 30-recipe limit and receive 250 monthly credits at renewal, but that plan is no longer offered.

To change plans, open the homepage menu and choose usage and plan. Choose try more usage for free to move through the €2.25, €4.25 and €6.25 plans. At tier 6 (€6.25) or higher, choose request more usage to tell us what you need, even before your credits run out. The manage plan section at the bottom lets you cancel plan to return to free. Accounts above tier 2 can also downgrade to the next lower offered paid plan. Downgrading and cancelling both ask for confirmation. You keep this month's remaining credits until the next reset, when the lower plan's allowance applies. Returning to the free plan keeps your existing recipes, but you cannot add more while you have 20 or more.

When you reach your limit, we ask whether you would pay the proposed price for a higher plan. Your answer helps us evaluate pricing; moving to that plan remains free during the test. After upgrading, your import, message, or recipe save continues automatically with its original input. Closing the dialog or leaving the page cancels that pending action.

At tectec.app/settings/usage you can see credits left, when they reset, and a day-by-day breakdown of what you used them on. A banner appears in the app once you are near the limit; you can dismiss it and it stays gone until the next reset.

Privacy

Your library is private. Olive only sees the recipes you ask about and has no write access to your data. The browser extension acts only when you click it: the page it sends is used for that one import and deleted after success, a final no-recipe result, or removal of a failed import. Captured pages and pasted text from failed imports are also cleared during daily cleanup once they are seven days old. The failed card stays until you remove it; retrying a link then fetches the page again. Nothing runs in the background and nothing goes to third parties. A connected AI assistant gets only the permissions you approved, only while connected; disconnecting it in settings revokes its access at once. Full policy at tectec.app/privacy.

Getting help

Ask Olive, or write to hello@tectec.app. To report a bug or suggest something, pick send feedback from the ⋯ menu; it reaches the team along with the page you sent it from, up to five messages an hour.

If the team follows up by email, you can reply directly to continue the conversation.