MeatyTimes

MeatyTimes

MeatyTimes is a simple cooking assistant for roasting joints of meat. It turns meat type, weight, and doneness into clear roasting instructions, and it can also calculate a backwards serve-at schedule so a roast fits around a meal.

Project Name and Description

MeatyTimes is a lightweight web app for home cooks who want reliable roasting guidance without searching cookbooks or the web. The current scope is centred on the roast calculator experience described in specs/001-roast-calculator/spec.md: support for beef, lamb, pork, chicken, and gammon; weight-based calculations; doneness handling where appropriate; and a responsive experience for mobile, tablet, and desktop.

Later features add an input summary above results so instructions stay tied to the last calculation (specs/002-result-input-summary) and a refreshed calculator UI with a light teal-and-white layout (specs/003-calculator-ui-refresh).

Technology Stack

MeatyTimes is built with a modern .NET web stack:

• .NET SDK 10.0.300 via global.json (rollForward: latestFeature)
• C# and ASP.NET Core (Blazor Server)
• Blazor Server with Tailwind CSS v4 (standalone CLI) and Lucide icons
• .NET Aspire for local orchestration and Azure Container Apps deployment
• xUnit v3 for automated testing
• Central package management through Directory.Packages.props

Key package versions currently in use include:

• Aspire Hosting Azure App Containers: 13.6.0
• Tailwind CSS v4 standalone CLI (no Node/npm) at tools/tailwind/tailwindcss
• xUnit v3: 4.0.0
• bunit: 2.9.0
• NSubstitute: 5.3.0
• OpenTelemetry packages: 1.18.0

Project Architecture

The repository is organised as a single-container Aspire app:

• src/MeatyTimes.AppHost — Aspire orchestration for the web UI and shared defaults
• src/MeatyTimes.Core — domain models, cooking rules, and the calculation engine
• src/MeatyTimes.Web — Blazor Server UI with Tailwind CSS (calls Core in-process)
• src/MeatyTimes.ServiceDefaults — OpenTelemetry and health-check defaults

The design and contracts for this architecture live under specs/001-roast-calculator, including the implementation plan, data model, and API/UI contracts.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• .NET SDK 10.0.300 or newer (matching global.json)
• The Aspire CLI is recommended for the full local experience
• A trusted ASP.NET Core HTTPS dev certificate — required because the AppHost health-checks webfrontend over HTTPS. If startup hangs, run dotnet dev-certs https --trust.

Run locally

aspire run
# or
dotnet run --project src/MeatyTimes.AppHost

Then open the webfrontend endpoint shown in the Aspire dashboard (HTTPS; browsers may warn about the self-signed dev cert).

Tailwind CSS is built automatically on MeatyTimes.Web build via the standalone CLI. If the binary is missing, run tools/tailwind/download.sh (or download.ps1 on Windows) or dotnet build on the Web project.

Project Structure

• src — application projects for the AppHost, web UI, core logic, and shared defaults
• tests — MeatyTimes.Core.Tests (domain unit tests) and MeatyTimes.Web.Tests (Blazor component tests)
• specs — Spec Kit feature specifications, plans, and quickstarts
  • 001-roast-calculator — core calculator
  • 002-result-input-summary — input summary on results
  • 003-calculator-ui-refresh — visual UI migration
• docs — end-user documentation (GitHub Pages at meatytimes.markheydon.me.uk)
• docs-internal — contributor and developer documentation
• .specify — project constitution and Spec Kit configuration
• .github — CI/CD workflows, Dependabot, and repository automation

Key Features

• Roast instruction calculation for beef, lamb, pork, chicken, and gammon
• Doneness selection where applicable, with food-safe defaults for poultry, pork, and gammon
• Serve-at backwards scheduling for planned meal timing
• Input summary above results showing which meat, weight, and doneness a calculation used — stable while the form is edited
• Responsive Tailwind CSS UI with a light teal-and-white calculator layout; Celsius primary with Fahrenheit equivalents in results
• No accounts, history, or persistence required for the primary calculate flow

Development Workflow

Feature work in this repository can follow the Spec Kit workflow:

• /speckit-specify, /speckit-plan, /speckit-tasks, and /speckit-implement for structured feature delivery
• Spec Kit feature branches use NNN-short-name numbering (see .specify/extensions/git/)
• The constitution (v2.0.0) sets binding quality gates across eight principles: separation of concerns, architectural discipline, testability, explicit error handling, user-facing consistency, security by design, traceability, and code quality

Contributors do not need Spec Kit — a well-described pull request is enough. See CONTRIBUTING.md.

Stack-specific conventions live in docs-internal/tech-stack.md.

Coding Standards

The constitution in .specify/memory/constitution.md sets the baseline for the project:

• Domain logic belongs in src/MeatyTimes.Core
• Cooking-critical rules should be clearly commented and easy to audit
• Calculation changes require unit tests before merge
• Deterministic rules should remain documented and traceable through src/MeatyTimes.Core/Rules/cooking-rules.json

Testing

MeatyTimes uses a two-layer test strategy. Tooling and project layout: docs-internal/testing-standards.md. Coverage rules: constitution Principle III.

Tooling standard: xUnit v3, built-in Assert methods only, NSubstitute for mocks when needed. Do not introduce FluentAssertions, AwesomeAssertions, Shouldly, Moq, NUnit, or MSTest. Playwright is reserved for end-to-end user-journey tests when explicitly required.

Run the unit tests for the calculation engine:

dotnet test tests/MeatyTimes.Core.Tests

Run the full suite:

dotnet test MeatyTimes.slnx
# or
dotnet test

Cooking-critical behaviour should be covered by outcome-named tests and verified before merge.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please read CONTRIBUTING.md and CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md before opening a pull request. For security issues, see SECURITY.md.

For cooking-rule changes or new meat types, include:

• documented sources or rationale for the rule change
• unit tests in tests/MeatyTimes.Core.Tests
• user-facing examples or validation coverage where appropriate

Pull requests should pass the CI workflow in .github/workflows/ci.yml (build, format check, tests) and the Aspire deploy validation in .github/workflows/aspire-deploy-validate.yml. Merges to main trigger CD deployment to Azure Container Apps via .github/workflows/cd.yml.

License

MeatyTimes is released under the MIT License. See LICENSE for details.

Copyright © Mark Heydon.