Peckish — DoorDash ordering

Peckish 🍜

Feeling peckish? Just ask. An AI ordering agent for DoorDash — it searches, compares real totals (fees included), builds the cart, and you approve every order. Built on Claude and DoorDash's official dd-cli.

One tool layer, three surfaces:

Which one is for me?

• Comfortable with a terminal? → Terminal chat. Fastest, most informative.
• Want something that feels like an app? → Local web app. Cards, live quote, a proper Place-order button.
• Already use Claude Desktop or Claude Code? → MCP server. No API key, no separate chat window — Claude itself becomes your ordering agent, and order confirmation appears as a native dialog.

[Peckish finding a dinner under $25: tool calls run, a recommendation streams in with the fee-included total, and an order-confirmation dialog asks for approval before anything is placed.]
_{Scripted demo of the web app — store, prices and card are fictional; the interface and the approval gate are the real ones.}

peckish on the web →

Updates: every release ships with full notes, all artifacts, and a SHA256SUMS.txt on Releases — see CHANGELOG.md for the history. Watch the repo (Releases only) to get notified.

Install in one line — no git clone:

npm install -g peckish

Prefer an app? Download the Mac app (.dmg) — guided setup, no terminal at any step. See Mac app below. Everything runs on your own machine either way, because dd-cli holds your DoorDash session there — a Mac (Apple Silicon) or Linux x86_64, including containers and cloud sandboxes: see Linux, containers and headless hosts.

you › Find me a high-protein dinner under $25 that can arrive within 45      minutes. Avoid mushrooms and excessive fees.
⚙ search_restaurants {"query":"grilled chicken bowls","limit":8}  ✓ 2.1s⚙ get_menu {"store_id":"35406455","filter":"chicken"}             ✓ 1.8s⚙ list_carts {"store_id":"35406455"}                              ✓ 1.2s⚙ add_items_to_cart {…}                                           ✓ 2.4s⚙ preview_order {"cart_uuid":"…"}                                 ✓ 3.9s
Best fit: Sharon Korean Kitchen (4.8★, ~24 min) — Grilled Chicken BulgogiBowl, $16.95. No mushrooms listed. Total with fees: $21.40 on your Visaending 1234. Suggested Dasher tip is $3.50 — that, another amount, or none?~$0.04 turn · $0.04 session

Get started (user guide)

1. Prerequisites

• A Mac with Apple Silicon (M1–M4) or Linux x86_64 — the two platforms dd-cli publishes builds for. Peckish is local-first: whichever machine you run it on is the backend on every surface, because that's where dd-cli holds your DoorDash session.
• Node.js 20+ — node --version to check; install from nodejs.org or brew.
• DoorDash CLI access (currently waitlist-gated by DoorDash). Peckish requires dd-cli ≥ 0.2.1 — on Linux, ≥ 0.2.2, the first release with Linux builds — and targets ≥ 0.2.6, the current release. Older binaries still order fine; Peckish reads dd-cli --version at startup and turns off only what that build can't do (see dd-cli versions). Download the release from doordash-oss/doordash-cli, verify the SHA256 checksum against the published value, then:
  sh

  # macOS (Apple Silicon)tar -xzf dd-cli-v*-darwin-arm64.tar.gz && cd dd-cli-v*-darwin-arm64# Linux (x86_64)tar -xzf dd-cli-v*-linux-amd64.tar.gz && cd dd-cli-v*-linux-amd64
  bash install.sh          # both platforms — installs to ~/.local/bin/dd-clidd-cli login             # sign in to DoorDash in your browser

  No browser on that machine (container, VM, cloud sandbox)? See Linux, containers and headless hosts.
• An Anthropic API key for the terminal/web surfaces (console.anthropic.com) — or skip the key entirely and use the MCP surface with your Claude subscription (step 4).

2. Install Peckish

npm install -g peckish

That's it — you now have three commands: peckish (terminal chat), peckish-web (web app), and peckish-mcp (MCP server).

git clone https://github.com/CydVilla/peckish.gitcd peckishnpm installnpm test          # optional: 25 unit tests, no network needednpm run dev       # terminal chat (or: npm run web / npm run mcp)

3. Run it — terminal or web

export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-…   # from console.anthropic.com
peckish         # terminal chatpeckish-web     # web app → open http://localhost:4747

On boot Peckish verifies your DoorDash sign-in, shows your default delivery address, and flags any open carts you forgot about. If sign-in is missing or expired, Peckish offers to fix it for you: the terminal asks before launching dd-cli login (which opens your browser), the web app shows a sign-in card, and mid-conversation the agent can offer the same assist on any surface — you approve, sign in in the browser, and it picks up where it left off. On a machine with no browser, Peckish skips that offer and tells you how to inject a token instead — see below.

4. Or run it inside Claude — no API key

Claude itself becomes the ordering agent, and your Claude subscription pays for the model. Pick whichever fits your client:

Claude Code — one line:

claude mcp add peckish -- npx -y peckish-mcp

Claude Desktop — download peckish-0.2.2.mcpb from Releases and double-click it. Claude Desktop installs it like a browser extension: no terminal, no Node install, no JSON editing.

{  "mcpServers": {    "peckish": {      "command": "npx",      "args": ["-y", "peckish-mcp"]    }  }}

Peckish is also listed in the MCP Registry as io.github.CydVilla/peckish, so clients that browse the registry can find it directly.

Restart Claude Desktop and ask it to find you dinner. Order confirmation appears as a native dialog; clients that can't render dialogs can browse and build carts but cannot place orders (fail closed).

5. Everyday use

Things to say:

• "Find me a high-protein dinner under $25 that can arrive within 45 minutes. Avoid mushrooms and excessive fees."
• "Compare the real totals at the top two — fees included."
• "Reorder my usual from Sharon Korean."
• "What did I spend on delivery last month?"
• "Is this place actually good?" (checks web reviews)
• "Never mushrooms, ever." → saved permanently; applied automatically next time
• "Get me milk, eggs, and a pound of ground beef from Whole Foods."

Placing an order always ends with an explicit confirmation you perform — typing yes in the terminal, clicking Place order in the web modal, or approving the dialog in Claude Desktop. Before that, Peckish must show you the itemized quote, confirm the tip, and name the card being charged. Decline anything and it backs off.

Controls & housekeeping

Cost: defaults are tuned for low spend at decent quality — claude-sonnet-5 at medium effort, prompt caching on the system prefix and conversation tail, and server-side context editing that prunes stale menu payloads in long sessions. The cost meter shows the approximate spend per turn and per session. Max quality: DD_AGENT_MODEL=claude-opus-4-8 DD_AGENT_EFFORT=high. (On MCP, the client chooses and pays for the model.)

Troubleshooting

Env vars: DD_AGENT_MODEL (default claude-sonnet-5), DD_AGENT_EFFORT (low–max, default medium), DD_CLI_PATH, PECKISH_PORT (default 4747), DD_CLI_ACCESS_TOKEN (read by dd-cli itself — browserless sign-in).

Mac app

A double-clickable app for people who never want to see a terminal: download Peckish-x.y.z-arm64.dmg from Releases, drag Peckish to Applications, and open it.

First launch (Gatekeeper): the app is ad-hoc signed but not notarized (no paid Apple Developer ID), so macOS won't open it on a plain double-click the first time. Right-click the app → "Open" → "Open" (or approve it under System Settings → Privacy & Security). Only needed once.

If macOS instead says "Peckish is damaged and can't be opened", you have a build from before this was fixed, or the download quarantine got confused. Clear it once and it opens normally:

sh

xattr -cr /Applications/Peckish.app

First-run setup happens in the app — three buttons, no terminal:

1. DoorDash CLI — one-click guided install (downloads the official release, verifies its SHA256 checksum before running anything). If you don't have dd-cli access yet, there's a waitlist link.
2. Sign in to DoorDash — opens your browser; the app detects when you're done. Your sign-in lives in the macOS keychain.
3. Anthropic API key — paste it once; it's stored encrypted with Electron safeStorage (keychain-backed), never in plain text.

Then Open Peckish — same web app, same order-confirmation modal, same safety gates; the app is just a shell that runs the local server for you on a random localhost-only port. Requires Apple Silicon; Node.js is not required (the app bundles its own runtime).

Building it yourself: cd desktop && npm install && npm run dist → desktop/dist/Peckish-*.dmg.

The .dmg is the one Mac-only surface. The terminal, web and MCP surfaces all run on Linux too:

Linux, containers and headless hosts

dd-cli v0.2.2 added Linux (amd64) builds, so all three Peckish surfaces run on Linux x86_64 unchanged — same tools, same order gate, same audit log. Install dd-cli from the same release page (asset dd-cli-v<version>-linux-amd64.tar.gz, verify its SHA256, bash install.sh), then npm install -g peckish. If you put the binary somewhere other than ~/.local/bin/dd-cli, set DD_CLI_PATH — Peckish also checks /usr/local/bin/dd-cli and your PATH.

With a desktop session (DISPLAY or WAYLAND_DISPLAY set), nothing changes: dd-cli login opens your browser and the built-in sign-in assist works exactly as it does on a Mac.

Without one — a container, a VM, a cloud sandbox, SSH with no forwarding — the browser flow cannot complete, so Peckish stops offering it (no spawned login that hangs forever, no "run dd-cli login" advice that can't work) and points at the token path instead:

# 1. on a machine that HAS a browser (dd-cli ≥ 0.2.2)dd-cli export-token
# 2. in the environment that runs Peckishexport DD_CLI_ACCESS_TOKEN='<the token>'peckish            # or peckish-web / peckish-mcp

dd-cli picks the token up from the environment Peckish passes down, so every surface authenticates without a keychain or a browser.

• That token is live access to your DoorDash account — it can place real orders. Treat it like a password: keep it in your runtime's secret store, not in an image layer, a docker run -e in your shell history, or a committed .env. Mint a fresh one with dd-cli export-token when it expires.
• The order gate does not change. Placing an order still needs your explicit approval on the surface you're using (typed yes, the web modal, or the MCP dialog) — headless means no browser, not unattended ordering.
• peckish-web in a container binds 127.0.0.1 inside the container by design, so a published port (-p 4747:4747) can't reach it. Run the container with --network host (Linux), or use the terminal or MCP surface, which need no port at all.
• Not supported: Linux arm64 and Intel Macs — dd-cli publishes no build for either, and Peckish says so explicitly instead of failing obscurely.

What it does

• Search → menus → cart → preview → confirm → submit, with the real fee/ETA quote (order preview) driving every recommendation.
• Comparison shopping: builds carts at up to 3 finalists, compares true totals + fee share + ETA, recommends one, deletes the losers.
• Fee tactics: promo scanning with consent, pickup-vs-delivery comparison, DoorDash credits surfaced, DashPass status shown.
• Memory: dietary rules and habits persist across sessions and surfaces.
• History: "my usual" from order frequency, honest spend breakdowns from receipts, reorders with silent-drop detection.
• Web reviews via Claude's server-side web search (never used for prices — dd-cli is the only source of truth for ordering data).
• Group carts (new in 0.4.0): "start a group order for the team, $25 each" — creates a shareable cart link, optional per-person spend limit, host reviews and submits when everyone's in.
• Guest sub-carts (new): order for people who have no DoorDash account at all — "add a veggie burrito for Luke Wulf" puts their items in their own sub-cart of your group cart. They never sign in, never install anything. Name them the same way each time and their items stay together; ask "who's ordered?" to see who is tracked. The per-guest credential DoorDash issues is held by Peckish and never shown to you or the model — see Guest sub-carts.
• Express delivery (new): asks for Priority when you want it fastest — offered per-cart, priced into the quote before you approve.
• Credits control (new): DoorDash credits apply by default; say "don't use my credits" to opt out for an order.
• Enterprise chains (new): Domino's, Sweetgreen, Dave's Hot Chicken and other big chains are now orderable (dd-cli ≥ 0.2.1).
• Search filters (new): "somewhere cheap that can be here in 30 minutes" narrows server-side — DashPass-only, price tier, max ETA, search radius — instead of pulling 30 results and sifting.
• Promo-aware menus (new): menus and item details carry the store's live promotions and which items qualify, priced against the delivery address, so a deal gets offered while you're still choosing rather than at checkout.
• Pickup at a glance (new): search results say per store whether pickup is available now, schedulable, or opens later — useful when the fees annoy you.
• Schedule ahead (new): a store that's closed now is offered as "opens at 6, I can schedule it" instead of being dropped from the results.
• Weight-priced items (new): deli, butcher and produce items take a decimal quantity in their own unit, and Peckish tells you the total is an estimate because the charge follows the actual weight.
• Address lookup (new): deliver somewhere that isn't saved yet — Peckish resolves the address, has you pick the exact match, and asks before saving it (it becomes your account default).
• Live order tracking (new): "where's my food?" answers from the full lifecycle — placement, progress, current ETA, late trend, cancellation reason — not just "did it go through".
• Work benefits (company budgets + expense codes), scheduled delivery, pickup, groceries/retail/pets/alcohol, group order history.

Guest sub-carts

A DoorDash group cart holds items for two kinds of people, and they work differently:

• Participants have their own DoorDash account. They open the group cart link and add their own items under their own identity. Peckish joins one on your behalf with the link itself.
• Guests have no account and never touch DoorDash. The host's account adds on their behalf, into a sub-cart tagged with their name. This is what makes "just tell me what everyone wants" work for a team where only one person has the CLI.

DoorDash issues a per-guest token on that guest's first add. It is a bearer credential for their sub-cart, it is returned exactly once — cart show never echoes it and there is no endpoint to fetch it again — and dd-cli's own guidance is to keep it server-side and out of logs.

So Peckish keeps it. Tokens are stored in ~/.peckish/guests.json (mode 0600) keyed by cart and guest name, stripped out of every tool result before the model sees one, and therefore never written to the session audit log, which records a preview of every result. The model works purely in names: it says "Luke Wulf" and Peckish supplies the right credential. There is no way for the assistant to read, request or repeat a token, which is the point.

Two consequences worth knowing:

• Spelling matters. "Luke Wulf" and "Luke Wolf" are two guests with two sub-carts. Peckish ignores case and extra spaces, nothing more.
• The file matters. Delete it mid-cart and the affected guests' continuity is gone — the only recovery is starting them again under the same name, which forks their line items. Peckish drops a cart's guests once its order is submitted or the cart is deleted, and prunes anything older than 30 days.

dd-cli versions

dd-cli is a separate binary on its own release cadence, and every release since 0.2.2 has added flags. Peckish probes dd-cli --version once per process and degrades instead of breaking:

Two scripts keep this honest:

node scripts/verify-dd-cli.mjs      # what YOUR dd-cli actually acceptsnode scripts/check-dd-cli-release.mjs   # is a newer dd-cli out?

verify-dd-cli.mjs runs the commands Peckish runs against your real, signed-in binary and reports which flags it accepts and what field names the responses carry. It is read-only — no carts, no saved addresses, no orders. Run it after a dd-cli upgrade, or when something Peckish sends comes back rejected — docs/dd-cli-verification.md is the checklist for acting on what it reports. check-dd-cli-release.mjs runs weekly in CI and files an issue when dd-cli publishes a release newer than the one Peckish targets.

Behaviour Peckish applies on its own — like pricing menus against your saved address so promo eligibility is right — stays off until the version check confirms the binary supports it. A flag the model asked for explicitly is always passed through, so an old binary answers with its own error naming the flag rather than Peckish silently ignoring the request. The detected version goes into the session context, so the assistant knows what it can offer and suggests an upgrade only when you ask for something the binary can't do.

Architecture

terminal REPL          local web app           MCP client (Claude Desktop…) src/index.ts           src/web.ts + public/    src/mcp.ts      └────────────┬─────────┘                       │  (client's model reasons;                   ↓                                 │   server instructions guide it)     Claude agent loop, streaming                    │     src/agent.ts · claude-sonnet-5 · strict tools   │     · adaptive thinking · context editing           │     · prompt caching · web_search · cost meter      │                   └───────────────┬─────────────────┘                                   ↓                 38 typed tools — src/tools.ts (strict: true)                                   ↓                 sanitizing wrapper — src/ddcli.ts                                   ↓                 dd-cli --json-output  →  DoorDash

Safety model

Placing an order always requires an explicit human approval rendered by the surface, not by the model:

Also on every surface:

• Strict tool schemas — the API guarantees tool arguments validate before any handler runs (no malformed-argument class).
• Abortable turns — Ctrl+C / Stop rolls history back to the turn start.
• Audit log — every tool call, argument set, duration, confirmation outcome, and submit result in ~/.peckish/logs/*.jsonl.
• Tip confirmed + card named before any submit ask; submit never auto-retries (not idempotent); success reported only after order status confirms.
• Merchant text treated as data (widget/assistant-instruction fields stripped); read-only CLI calls retry once on transient errors, mutations never do.
• Web server is localhost-only (Host + Origin checks).

What Peckish shares with DoorDash

dd-cli ≥ 0.2.1 requires an --intent note on every command, which DoorDash says it may review for research and product improvement. DoorDash's documented format asks for your verbatim prompt — but food prompts routinely contain dietary, health, and religious signals, which DoorDash's own guidance says to avoid. So Peckish defaults to privacy:

• What is sent: a one-line goal summary authored by the model at generic altitude (e.g. Summary: Help the user order dinner), plus an explicit user prompt/purpose: "(not shared — Peckish privacy default)" marker.
• What is never sent by default: your verbatim words, dietary rules, budgets, names, saved preferences, or conversation content.
• Opt in to the full format: set PECKISH_INTENT_VERBATIM=1 and the intent will include your opening request verbatim, as DoorDash's docs ask.

Independent of intent, DoorDash necessarily sees the API traffic itself (searches, carts, orders) — that's inherent to ordering.

Repo map

Releasing

Everything ships from one tag. .github/workflows/release.yml publishes both npm packages, registers the MCP Registry entry, builds the .mcpb and the .dmg, and attaches both to the GitHub release:

npm version patch          # or edit the versions by handgit push && git push --tags

Every publish step is skip-if-already-published, so re-running a tag after a failure is safe. .github/workflows/ci.yml runs typecheck, tests, a metadata consistency check, and a real MCP handshake on every push.

scripts/check-consistency.mjs guards the metadata that spans files and drifts silently — the registry namespace casing, matching server.json name and mcpName, the 100-character registry description cap, and the extension's advertised tool list. Run it locally before tagging.

Notes & limitations

• Local-first by design: hosted delivery (SMS bots, voice) would require DoorDash's partner API — your own machine is the backend here.
• One open cart per store (DoorDash rule) — Peckish collision-checks and asks.
• payment-method list sees cards only; wallet defaults (Apple Pay etc.) are confirmed generically or via the browser checkout URL.
• Age-restricted items can't be submitted by an agent — checkout URL fallback.
• Popularity data is deliberately unused (per dd-cli guidance); web reviews fill that gap with attribution.
• Cost figures are close estimates from token usage at list prices.