fftp 0.4.0

The open protocol for ordering food.
Order from your terminal — or let your AI agent do it. Restaurants keep 100%.

For humans (and their agents)

pip install fftp

Or skip the typing entirely — paste this into Claude or ChatGPT:

Set up fftp on this machine so I can order food from my terminal.

1. Install it: pip install fftp
2. Run `fftp --help` to verify it works
3. Ask me where I'm located and what I like to eat, then help me add restaurants near me
4. Walk me through placing my first order

Docs: https://github.com/OpenSourceRulesz/fftp — if any step fails, diagnose and fix it, don't just describe the problem.

Then it's:

fftp nearby chinese      # what's around?
fftp menu china-express  # read the menu
fftp order china-express # place a pickup order
fftp watch ord_abc123    # dings + phone alert when it's ready

watch shows the pickup address with a maps link, fires a desktop notification when your food's ready, and with --notify mytopic it pings your phone via ntfy — no account needed.

For restaurants

Zero commission. Your customers, your menu, your money.

bash installer/install.sh   # macOS/Linux (installer/install.ps1 on Windows)
~/.fftp/fftp-app    # opens your counter dashboard

Upload your existing menu — PDF, Excel, a text file, whatever you've got — and the dashboard converts it for you. Orders ding in live; tap a button to move them along. Pickup-first by design; opt into delivery with your own fee whenever you want.

Customers can also order from their phone browser: the dashboard's Settings tab shows a QR code — print it, stick it on the counter, and scanning it opens a simple order page. No app to install.

Adding a restaurant is one command: fftp add http://<server>:8000 registers it from its counter QR.

The dashboard is protected by an admin token: the server prints your dashboard URL (with ?token=...) on startup, and --app opens it directly. Pass --admin-token to set your own, or it generates and saves one next to the database.

Taking card payments online

Out of the box, customers pay at the counter — the dashboard shows a COLLECT $X badge on unpaid tickets and you tap Mark paid. For online card payment (Apple Pay, Google Pay, and saved cards all appear automatically):

1. Create a free Stripe account and grab your secret key.
2. Start the server with it set:

STRIPE_SECRET_KEY=sk_live_... ~/.fftp/fftp-app

Customers are offered card payment in the terminal, pay on their phone, and the ticket flips to paid by itself. Card fees (~2.9% + 30¢) go to Stripe, like any card payment — fftp takes nothing.

Ordering from home (not just shop wifi)

By default fftp works on the restaurant's own network. To let customers order from home — still free, still no middleman — use Tailscale (free for up to 100 devices):

1. Install Tailscale on the restaurant computer and run tailscale up.
2. Customers install Tailscale on their device and join the same tailnet.
3. In the customer's ~/.config/fftp/places.yaml, point the restaurant at its Tailscale IP:

places:
  - {name: wandering-taco, base_url: http://100.64.0.5:8000, cuisine: Mexican, lat: 40.7, lon: -74.0}

Get the IP with tailscale ip -4 on the restaurant machine. (The installer offers this step too.)

The protocol

Four calls. That's the whole thing:

GET  /.well-known/fftp.json   → "here's my ordering server"
GET  /fftp/v1/menu            → structured menu (prices, modifiers, availability)
POST /fftp/v1/orders          → place the order
GET  /fftp/v1/orders/{id}     → received → preparing → ready

Any client can implement it — a terminal app, an AI agent, a mobile app, a script. The restaurant runs one tiny server; everything else is just HTTP.

Principles

• Open — MIT licensed. The protocol is documented and anyone can build on it.
• No telemetry — the software never phones home. Ever.
• Free — the protocol is free forever. No commissions, no rent-seeking.

Development

git clone https://github.com/OpenSourceRulesz/fftp
cd fftp
python -m venv .venv && .venv/bin/pip install -e .
.venv/bin/python demo.py          # runs the full self-test
bash examples/serve-test-places.sh # spin up 6 test restaurants

License

MIT — see LICENSE.