Recipe Compiler — Cook Like a Computer

Recipe Source Code

About Recipe Compiler

Why this project?

After 13 RageBuilder projects dominated by canvas-based visualizations and Web Audio sonification, this project completely breaks the pattern. Research uncovered academic work on optimal cooking procedure presentation (MDPI Algorithms 2021) and the Cooklang recipe markup language. The insight: recipes are fundamentally programs — they have variables (ingredients), sequential logic (steps), dependencies (you can't serve before you cook), and parallelism opportunities (boil water while chopping vegetables). Nobody had built an interactive tool that treats recipes as executable code.

What is it?

Recipe Compiler lets you write cooking recipes in a simple domain-specific language (DSL), then analyzes them like a real compiler: parsing ingredients, building a dependency graph between steps, performing topological sort to determine execution order, calculating the critical path, and generating an optimized parallel schedule. The result is an interactive timeline showing exactly when to do each step, which tasks can run simultaneously, and how much time you save through parallelism.

How does it work?

Parser: Reads the DSL line-by-line. Lines starting with @ are ingredients (format: @name{quantity unit}). Lines starting with # are steps (format: #description duration: Nmin temp: T°C depends: step_ids).

Dependency Graph: Each step becomes a node in a directed acyclic graph (DAG). Edges point from prerequisites to dependent steps.

Topological Sort: Kahn's algorithm processes the DAG to find a valid execution order and detect cycles.

Critical Path: For each step, calculates earliest start time (max of all prerequisite end times). The longest chain determines minimum total cook time.

Parallel Groups: Steps that can start at the same time are grouped together and color-coded in the timeline.

How to use it

Load an example: Use the dropdown above the editor to load a pre-built recipe, or write your own using the DSL syntax shown in the examples.

Write ingredients: Start lines with @ followed by the ingredient name in curly braces with quantity and unit: @flour{2 cups}

Write steps: Start lines with # followed by a description. Add optional metadata: duration: 10min, temp: 200°C, depends: 2 3

Compile: Click the ▷ Compile button to parse and analyze your recipe.

Read the output: The metrics panel shows total steps, parallel opportunities, sequential vs optimized time. Step cards show dependencies. The timeline visualizes the optimized schedule with critical path highlighted in red.