Microwave Pie
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🧭 Start Here

Blackcap Overview ✨ Blackcap Feature Catalog 🧱 Technology, Administration, and Reliability Installation First Run

🚀 Deploy Blackcap

Platform Stacks and Raspberry Pi Hardware Raspberry Pi Deployment Raspberry Pi Client Services GCP Deployment Packaged Blackcap deployment Application Updates Blackcap Release Notes Environment Variables and Secrets Reverse Proxy and TLS Background Jobs and Schedules

🛠️ Administer Blackcap

Organizations Users, Permissions, and Authentication Configuration Workspace Backups and Restore Database Administration Regression Testing Performance and Job Status Audit, Access Activity, and Logging GeoIP and Access Location Data Retention and Purge Support Chat Administration Support Requests API Tester and Postman Instance Reporting Microwave Pie licensing for Blackcap Microwave Pie licensing for Blackcap

🍽️ Use Recipes

Recipes and the Recipe Library Recipe Import and Discovery Recipe Editing and Cache Artifacts Recipe Sharing Social Recipe Import AI Recipe Image Generation

📅 Plan Meals

Meal Planner

🛒 Use Shopping Lists

Shopping Lists and Shop a List External and Household Shopping 🧩 Chrome Extension Shop With

🧺 Manage Kitchen Inventory

🧺 Kitchen Inventory

🖥️ Use Displays

Displays and Connections Assigning and Scheduling Display Content Remote Pi Client E-Ink Rendering Menu Refresh and Rendering Noun Project Footer Images

🧑‍🍳 Cook with Let’s Cook

🧑‍🍳 Let’s Cook 🧑‍🍳 Let’s Cook Controls and Timers

🤖 Use and Administer AI

🤖 AI in Blackcap 🤖 AI Providers and Connections 🤖 AI Seeds and Usage Support Chat

🧩 Use the Chrome Extension

🧩 Blackcap Chrome Extension 🧩 Chrome Extension Recipe Capture 🧩 Chrome Extension Shop With 🧩 Chrome Extension Release and Privacy

🎮 Play Games

🎮 Games and Trivia

🔌 Integrations

Email Integration Cloud Storage Integrations Voice Assistants Shop With Integrations Authentication Providers

⚙️ Develop Blackcap

Application Architecture Database Service and Data Access SQLite and PostgreSQL Database Migrations Background Job Architecture Testing API Architecture Security and Organization Scoping UI, Icons, and Documentation Assets Blackcap-Safe Emoji Support Chat Architecture Extending Support Chat Support Chat Model Benchmark Documentation Standards Terminology

⚠️ Troubleshoot Blackcap

⚠️ Troubleshooting Licensing Troubleshooting Deployment Troubleshooting Display Troubleshooting Recipe Import Troubleshooting 🤖 AI Troubleshooting Backup Troubleshooting Database Troubleshooting Diagnostic Organization Clones Support Chat

Blackcap Overview

Audience: User, Org Admin, System Admin, Deployment Administrator Related: Index · Feature Catalog · Technology, Administration, and Reliability · Recipes · Meal Planner · Displays · Let’s Cook

Blackcap is a recipe, meal-planning, shopping, kitchen-display, and guided-cooking application. It supports Raspberry Pi and GCP deployments, SQLite and PostgreSQL, local e-ink displays, Hosted Web Receivers, Kiosks, Remote Pi Clients, mobile and administrative interfaces, and the Blackcap Chrome Extension.

Blackcap is organization-aware. Users work in an Active Organization, while System Admin and Org Admin permissions control platform and organization administration. The detailed documentation is organized by stable feature and operational responsibility rather than by the development conversation that introduced a change.

Authenticated Admin users can open 📄 Documentation from the user menu to browse this canonical documentation inside their Blackcap instance. The same Markdown source is also used for the public Blackcap documentation presentation.

Major capabilities

Blackcap's everyday product capabilities include Recipe Library, normal and social recipe import, manual and photo capture, recipe editing and sharing, Meal Planner, Shopping Lists, Kitchen Inventory, display assignment and scheduling, Let’s Cook, AI-assisted workflows, voice assistants, the Chrome Extension, Mobile, integrations, and trivia games.

🧱 Solid technical foundation

The household-facing workflows are supported by role-aware organizations and security, provider-aware Database Admin, 🧑‍💻 API Tester and personal API Tokens, System diagnostics and safe audits, Performance and Job Status, backups and restore, data retention and cleanup, regression testing, activity history, GeoIP diagnostics, and managed deployment services. These are technical and administrative capabilities rather than ordinary end-user features.

See Technology, Administration, and Reliability for the maintained foundation overview.

Deployment choices

  • Raspberry Pi: local server, SQLite by default, optional attached Local E-Ink, optional Remote Pi Client behavior, stunnel TLS, systemd services, and managed schedules.
  • GCP: Compute Engine application host, Cloud SQL PostgreSQL, Cloud SQL Auth Proxy, Gunicorn, Nginx, HTTPS certificates, background services, and host-aware backup behavior.

Product previews

The original project overview included these product examples. They remain useful as orientation, but the application UI and rendering may evolve beyond the captured images.

Menu mode with Noun Project icons

Chrome Extension recipe capture

Chrome Extension recipe capture

Admin UI

Blackcap Admin UI

Recipe Library

Blackcap Recipe Library

Mobile UI

Blackcap Mobile UI

Live recipe display and Return to Default

Render a recipe

Return a display to its default content

Product principles

Blackcap is designed to be calm, focused, useful, and visually quiet when it is not demanding attention. Its e-ink roots favor low-power, low-refresh, distraction-free presentation, while the broader product keeps recipe, planning, shopping, administration, and guided-cooking workflows intentional rather than noisy.

Contributions should preserve existing architecture and user behavior, add focused tests, and update the canonical documentation. See Documentation Standards.

More information

  • Feature Catalog — Browse the complete categorized list of implemented Blackcap capabilities.
  • Technology, Administration, and Reliability — Review the platform, data, diagnostics, backup, retention, and deployment foundation.
  • Installation — Install Blackcap for a Raspberry Pi or GCP deployment.
  • First Run — Complete the initial sign-in, organization, configuration, and validation steps.
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