How Sharing and Permissions Work in Tandoor Recipes

Updated

Tandoor Recipes is built for sharing recipes with family and friends, not for running a public recipe site. The documentation describes a basic permission system and recipe-level sharing and collaboration, but it explicitly states the application "is not meant to be run as a public page." If you want a private, shared cookbook for a known group of people, Tandoor fits. If you want an open, public-facing recipe website, it does not.

What sharing actually covers

According to the Tandoor documentation, the sharing and collaboration features include:

  • Share and collaborate on recipes with friends and family — recipes are the unit that gets shared, and collaboration is the intended use case.
  • Cookbooks collect recipes into books — cookbooks are a way to group recipes, which is useful when you want to share a themed set rather than individual recipes.
  • Shopping lists via the meal plan or straight from recipes — shopping lists can be generated from a meal plan or directly from recipes, which matters when several people cook from the same plan.

The documentation does not spell out, on the page reviewed, the exact per-user permission levels, invite flows, or whether sharing is per-recipe, per-cookbook, or both. For those specifics, the Permission System section of the docs is the place to look.

The permission model in plain terms

The site describes the permission system as "basic." Combined with the statement that Tandoor is not meant to be run as a public page, the practical reading is:

Your goal Does Tandoor fit?
Store and organize a personal recipe collection Yes
Share recipes with family and friends Yes — this is a stated core feature
Collaborate on recipes with a known group Yes
Run a public recipe site for anonymous visitors No — the docs say it is not meant for this
Fine-grained, role-heavy access control Unclear — the docs describe the system as "basic"

The distinction that matters: Tandoor assumes a bounded group of people who already know each other. It is not designed as a multi-tenant or public publishing platform.

Where to find the details

The documentation lists a Permission System page under its System section, alongside configuration, backup, and migration topics. That page is the authoritative source for how permissions are assigned and what each level allows. The Features section covers sharing, cookbooks, and shopping lists in more depth than the landing page.

If you are evaluating Tandoor for a household or a small group, start with the Permission System page before you commit to a setup, since the landing page only confirms that a basic system exists rather than describing its mechanics.