Getting Started

Prerequisites

Tool	Minimum version	Install
Rust	1.78+	`rustup update stable`
Docker + Compose	latest	docker.com
PostgreSQL	15+	postgresql.org
Ollama	latest	ollama.ai (optional — for AI features)
poppler	latest	`brew install poppler` / `apt install poppler-utils` (optional — for PDF pipeline)

PostgreSQL extensions required:

CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS pg_trgm;
CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS "uuid-ossp";

Service	Port	Purpose
Food API	`8081`	Ingredient and recipe catalog service
App API	`8080`	Authenticated app backend, meal planning, inventory, chat, and payments

This starts the databases and both Rust services together.

cd api
docker compose up --build

The compose file creates:

If you prefer running the binaries directly, start Postgres first and then run each service in its own terminal.

cd api
cp .env.example .env
# Fill in FOOD_DATABASE_URL, APP_DATABASE_URL, JWT_SECRET, and FOOD_API_URL

# Terminal 1
cargo run -p cookest-food-api

# Terminal 2
cargo run -p cookest-app-api

If you are not using Docker, create the two databases first:

createdb cookest_food
createdb cookest_app

cargo build -p cookest-food-api --release
cargo build -p cookest-app-api --release

docker build -f crates/food-api/Dockerfile -t cookest-food-api .
docker build -f crates/app-api/Dockerfile -t cookest-app-api .

curl http://localhost:8081/health
curl http://localhost:8080/health

Hot reload: Install cargo-watch (cargo install cargo-watch) and run cargo watch -x 'run -p cookest-food-api' or cargo watch -x 'run -p cookest-app-api' in separate terminals
Logs: Set RUST_LOG=debug in your .env for verbose output
Migrations: Run automatically on startup for both services