Creating Recipes

Overview

Kitchen is where you create, publish, and track your own Poke recipes.

A recipe bundles:

onboarding context and first-message behavior
required integrations (MCP templates)
a share/install link for users

Before You Start

A Poke account with Kitchen access at poke.com/kitchen
For CLI workflows: Node.js 18+ and the poke npm package (run through npx poke@latest)

Create a Recipe in Kitchen

Open the wizard

Go to poke.com/kitchen and click Create recipe.

Complete Basics

Set a recipe name. Description is optional.

Configure Onboarding

Optionally set:

What context Poke needs from the user (inputContext)
Prefilled first message (prefilledFirstText)

Select Integrations

Choose required integrations from the picker.

If an integration supports local credential sharing, you can mark it as shared so users don't need to set it up themselves.

Manage a Recipe

From Kitchen -> Recipes -> your recipe, you can:

edit onboarding context and prefilled first message
change required integrations and credential sharing settings

For published recipes, changes will only affect new sign-ups.

Publishing a recipe:

marks it Published
generates a referral/share link
makes it eligible for payouts

You will typically share links like:

https://poke.com/r/<referralCode>
https://poke.com/p/<partnerSlug> (if configured)

How `npx poke` Fits In

The poke npm package helps you bring integrations into your account and, with --recipe, can bootstrap a shareable recipe flow.

Package: npmjs.com/package/poke

1) Authenticate CLI

npx poke@latest login

This opens your browser for authentication. Enter the code shown in your terminal to log in.

Other auth commands:

npx poke@latest logout   # Clear stored credentials
npx poke@latest whoami   # Display current user info

2) Add or expose an MCP integration

# Remote MCP server
npx poke@latest mcp add https://mcp.example.com/sse -n "My Server"
 
# With API key authentication
npx poke@latest mcp add https://mcp.example.com/sse -n "My Server" -k "sk-your-api-key"
 
# Local MCP server over tunnel
# The tunnel only forwards the port — start your MCP server first, then tunnel it:
npx poke@latest tunnel http://localhost:3000/mcp -n "Local Dev MCP"

The tunnel only forwards the local port — it does not start or manage the MCP server itself. Start your server first, then run the tunnel command pointing at it.

The tunnel stays active until you press Ctrl+C. Tools are synced automatically every 5 minutes.

Then open Kitchen and select that integration in your recipe.

Some MCP servers require OAuth and must be added through the web app integrations flow instead of CLI.

3) Create a shareable recipe from CLI (`--recipe`)

npx poke@latest tunnel http://localhost:3000/mcp -n "Local Dev MCP" --recipe

With --recipe, the CLI creates a connection and returns a recipe link and QR code in the terminal. The recipe can then be managed further in Kitchen.

The tunnel must stay active for shared users to access your local server. If you stop the tunnel, the connection will go offline.

Credentials are stored at ~/.config/poke/credentials.json (or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/poke/credentials.json if set). The CLI defaults to https://poke.com and can be overridden with environment variables:

Variable	Default	Description
`POKE_API`	`https://poke.com/api/v1`	Backend API base URL
`POKE_FRONTEND`	`https://poke.com`	Frontend base URL

Payouts and Operations

Kitchen also includes Payouts where you can:

view unique-user totals and lifetime earnings
set your payout destination (Venmo phone/email/handle)
review payout history