Grocery shopping eats so much time. Remembering what you're out of, scrolling the same app for the same 40 things, guessing how many tomatoes you need, forgetting the one thing you actually ran out of. Every few weeks, forever.
So I handed the busywork to my AI assistant. Every three weeks, it builds my Carrefour delivery order for me: what we usually buy, minus what's already in the kitchen, plus anything I added to the list. It fills the cart, picks my usual delivery slot, and stops right before paying. I take a quick look and place the order.
It's brand new: the first fully automatic order runs on Monday, October 19. I'll add a note at the bottom of this post with how it went and what changed.
The whole thing in one sentence
My AI assistant knows what we usually order, checks what's already at home, fills my grocery cart every three weeks, and I just check it and click order.
What you need
- An online grocery store with delivery. I use Carrefour (carrefour.fr) in France. Any store with a website works the same way.
- Claude on a paid plan, with Claude in Chrome (a browser extension that lets Claude click around websites for you) and the Google Sheets connector.
- My Command Center tracker, or any Google Sheet. (Here's how mine works, with a free template.)
- The Claude desktop app on your computer, since the cart gets filled in your own browser, where you're already signed in to the store.
No coding.
Step 1: Let your AI assistant learn your usual order
This was the magic part. Instead of writing a shopping list from scratch, my AI assistant went through my last few Carrefour orders and wrote down every product and how many I bought each time. (On Carrefour, past orders are under your account, in the order history.)
It made a tab in my tracker called Carrefour History: one row per product, one column per past order, and a column called Usual per order with the amount we normally get. It also added notes when the numbers jumped around.
Four past orders were enough to see the pattern. Some things never change (Tuesday is feast night at our house, and the frozen pizzas are always the same). Some things swing a lot, and the notes say why.
Step 2: Keep one running list for extras
A second tab, Groceries, is for anything that isn't a regular: a new shampoo, something for a recipe, the thing you just used the last of. Each row has the item, the store, and a Status. Anything marked Need goes into the next order, then gets marked with the date it went in the cart.
I add things by voice, too: I tell my phone to add it to my calendar starting with "Command Center:", and my morning queue turns it into a row. (That's part of my Command Center.)
Step 3: Count what's already in the kitchen (with photos)
On order morning, I snap a few photos of the fridge, freezer and pantry shelves and send them to Claude. It counts what's there and fills in a Pantry tab: what we have, where it is, and when it was counted.
Then the math is simple: what we usually need, minus what's already at home, rounded to whole packs. No more ordering a fourth jar of something because I forgot I had three.
No photos that day? It just uses the usual amounts and tells me so.
Step 4: Tell it when it got it wrong
This is how it keeps getting better. After each order, I tell my assistant what was off: "we ran out of cherry tomatoes before three weeks were up," or "too much yogurt last time." It writes that in the item's notes and raises or lowers the amount next time.
Over time, the Pantry tab fills in a column called Used per 3 weeks: how much of each thing we actually go through. The more orders, the closer it gets to just right.
Step 5: Schedule it to run every three weeks
The order prep is a scheduled task: a job Claude runs on its own on a set day. Mine runs on Monday mornings, every third week.
Claude's schedules don't have an "every three weeks" option, so here's the trick: the task runs every Monday, and the very first line of its instructions tells it to count the weeks since the first order date and do nothing unless it's an order week. On the other Mondays it just says "Not a Carrefour week, skipping."
Click Scheduled in Claude's left sidebar, then New task, then Set up manually. Give it a name, set Frequency to Weekly, then pick the time and Monday, and paste instructions like these (change the brackets):
FIRST CHECK THE DATE: this task runs every Monday but only works every third Monday, starting [first date]. Count the days from that date to today; if the number isn't divisible by 21, do nothing and end with "Not an order week, skipping."
Prepare my [store] grocery order for the next 3 weeks. Read my Google Sheet [link]: start from the "Usual per order" column in the [Store] History tab, add everything marked Need in the Groceries tab, and subtract what's on hand in the Pantry tab (if nothing was counted today, use the usual amounts and say so).
In Chrome, open [store website], where I'm already signed in. If it asks me to log in, stop and tell me. Add each item in the right amount, choosing the same products as my past orders. If something is out of stock, pick the closest match and list the swap. Pick the delivery slot closest to [your usual day and time]. Never confirm the order, never pay, never enter or change card details. Stop at the payment step.
Then mark what went in the cart in my sheet and send me a short summary: the slot, the total, what changed from the usual amounts, and any swaps.
Because this one uses Chrome on your own computer, your computer needs to be on with the Claude desktop app open when it runs.
Step 6: You check and click order
When it's done, I get a short message: the delivery slot, the cart total, what's different from usual and why, and any swaps. I open the store's website, glance at the cart, and place the order myself.
That last click always stays with me. My assistant never pays for anything. That's one of my firm rules (I wrote about the rules I give my AI assistant here).
What's next
This is version one, and it's built to get better with every order:
- Amounts that tune themselves. Each order adds to the "Used per 3 weeks" numbers, so the usual amounts should need fewer corrections from me over time.
- A history that grows. After each order, my assistant adds that order as a new column in the history tab and updates the usual amounts when the pattern changes.
- Better guesses on swaps. Every out-of-stock swap gets listed, so I can say which ones to keep.
I'll update this post as it learns, so you can see exactly what changed (look for "What changed" at the bottom).
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