HomeCook

HomeCook is a mobile-first marketplace where home cooks list their dishes and buyers order from them. Cooks are paid by cash, Interac e-Transfer or card (through Stripe).

• Cooks: sign in with Gmail and set up a kitchen in about a minute. Add a dish with a photo, a name and a price. Switch dishes on or off, and manage orders. A sales dashboard shows meals sold and money made today, this week and this month. Cooks share their storefront with a link, on WhatsApp, on Instagram (bio, story or QR code) or as a printable QR code.
• Buyers: the home page lists kitchens (storefronts), filterable by city and cuisine. Searching a dish ("biryani") shows the kitchens that sell it. Buyers add dishes from one kitchen to a cart and check out once, as a guest with a name and phone number or signed in to see past orders. After ordering, one tap sends the whole order to the cook on WhatsApp.

Stack: Next.js 15 (App Router) + Tailwind CSS 4, Postgres on Neon, Auth.js (Google login), Vercel Blob (photos), Stripe Connect Express.

To rename the app, change src/lib/brand.ts. The brand colours are in src/app/globals.css. The city and cuisine lists cooks pick from are in src/lib/cities.ts and src/lib/cuisines.ts.

Run locally

npm install
cp .env.example .env.local    # set DATABASE_URL to any Postgres and AUTH_SECRET to random text
npm run dev

The app creates its tables the first time it connects, so there's no SQL to run. Without a Blob token, photos are saved in .uploads/ locally.

Go live on Vercel

1. Database: go to Storage → Create → Neon, then connect it to the project. Leave Auth and Realtime off and leave the prefix blank. This adds DATABASE_URL.
2. Photos: go to Storage → Create → Blob, then connect it to the project. This adds BLOB_READ_WRITE_TOKEN.
3. Settings: add these environment variables:
   • AUTH_SECRET: any long random text, for example from https://generate-secret.vercel.app/32
   • NEXT_PUBLIC_SITE_URL: e.g. https://your-app.vercel.app
4. Google login: in Google Cloud Console, create an OAuth client (type: Web application).
   • Authorised redirect URI: https://<your-domain>/api/auth/callback/google
   • Put the client ID and secret in AUTH_GOOGLE_ID and AUTH_GOOGLE_SECRET.
5. Stripe (optional, for card payments): enable Connect (Express) in your Stripe dashboard.
   • Add a webhook endpoint https://<your-domain>/api/stripe/webhook for checkout.session.completed and checkout.session.async_payment_succeeded.
   • Set STRIPE_SECRET_KEY and STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET.
   • If STRIPE_SECRET_KEY is empty, the app runs with cash and e-Transfer only.
6. Redeploy.

How orders work

1. A buyer adds dishes from one kitchen to their cart (saved in the browser), then at checkout picks pickup or delivery and a payment method the cook accepts. The order and its dishes (order_items) are saved on the server, which takes prices and availability from the database.
2. Card: the buyer pays with Stripe Checkout. The money goes to the cook's connected Stripe account, minus PLATFORM_FEE_PERCENT if you set one. An unpaid card order is hidden from the cook until payment succeeds.
3. Cash or e-Transfer: the confirmation page shows how to pay, and a WhatsApp button sends the order details to the cook.
4. The cook confirms the order, then marks it completed. Completed orders count towards the sales dashboard.

Success metrics

Run these in the Neon SQL editor (Vercel → Storage → your database → Open in Neon):

select count(*) from profiles where is_cook;                                     -- cooks (goal 50)
select count(*) from profiles where is_cook and exists
  (select 1 from dishes d where d.cook_id = profiles.id);                         -- cooks with a listing
select count(*) from orders where status <> 'cancelled'
  and (payment_method <> 'card' or paid);                                         -- orders placed (goal 5)

Counting the 20 people who go through the app needs page analytics. One option is Vercel Web Analytics: turn it on in the Vercel dashboard and add @vercel/analytics.

Not in v1

• A cart that holds several dishes (one order is one dish, any quantity).
• AI listing helper, photo enhancement, tags and AI food finder.