Documentation
Everything you need to connect Surprise Chef AI to your favourite AI assistant.
What is Surprise Chef AI?
Surprise Chef turns your AI assistant into a personal family chef. It connects to Claude, ChatGPT, or any MCP-compatible AI and gives it access to your pantry, family dietary profiles, cooking history, recipes, meal plans, and shopping lists. Every suggestion is personalised to your household.
How It Works
Create a free account
Sign up at surprisechef.ai with email and password. Name your household and pick your grocery store.
Connect your AI
Go to the Connect AI page in your dashboard. Follow the instructions for your platform (Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Desktop, or others).
Start cooking
Ask your AI anything food-related. It knows your pantry, your family's preferences, and your cooking history.
What You Can Do
Smart Recipes
AI-generated recipe cards with mise en place, smart timers, and cooking cues
Meal Planning
Weekly meal plans that balance cuisines, effort, and your pantry stock
Shopping Lists
Auto-generated from meal plans, with price estimates and interactive check-off
Pantry Tracking
Know what you have, what's running low, and what's out of stock
Family Profiles
Dietary restrictions, allergies, and food preferences for every family member
Dietary Alerts
Automatic warnings when recipes conflict with family allergies or medical needs
Recipe from Photo
Photograph a handwritten or printed recipe — AI digitises and saves it
Price Tracking
Learn your preferred brands and track grocery prices over time
Connecting to Claude
If Surprise Chef is in the Claude Connectors Directory, simply toggle it on from Settings → Connectors. You'll be prompted to authorize with your API key.
For manual setup:
- Open claude.ai in your browser → Settings → Connectors
- Click Add custom connector
- Name it Surprise Chef
- Paste your connection URL from the dashboard Connect AI page
- Click Add — start a new chat and you're connected
Claude gives you 1 free custom connector — no paid plan needed.
Connecting to ChatGPT
- Open chatgpt.com → Settings → Apps & Connectors → enable Developer Mode
- Go to Connectors → Create
- Paste your connection URL from the dashboard
- Save and start a new chat
Requires ChatGPT Plus or Pro.
Multi-User Households
Surprise Chef supports multiple people in one household:
- Owner — full control, invites, settings
- Member — full read/write, own recipes and personal shopping list, own AI connection
- Guest — view the meal plan and RSVP for dinner (“I'm coming Friday”)
Invite members from Settings → Household Members. They get their own account and MCP API key.
Troubleshooting
AI can't find my tools
Start a new chat. Tool definitions are loaded at the start of each conversation.
Connection URL not working
Check that you copied the full URL including the key parameter. The URL is unique to your account — don't share it.
“Unauthorized” error
Your API key may have changed. Go to the Connect AI page in your dashboard and copy the latest URL.