Recipe Site, Round Two: I Make the AI Do the REAL Work

So after my little jaunt with Gemini writing code for the digital recipe bin, I figured why not really test the boundaries of what these browser AIs can handle? Enter Comet Assistant—a so-called “browser-native” smart helper. Sounds snazzy. Turns out, it’s a whole circus act and I’m the guy with the whip, minus the power or the sequined suit.

First, the easy stuff.

I asked it to crawl through my GitHub repo, sort recipes alphabetically. Miracle—success, in a “this is what computers should have done twenty years ago” sort of way. Code got tweaked, buttons pressed, now the list is cleaner than my fridge ever was.

Not content to rest on its digital laurels...

I threw it a real task: parse a new recipe out of a PDF (try that by hand some Friday night), convert it to JSON, and plug it into my site’s machinery. This, dear reader, is where things get interesting. See, Comet can read anything in the browser, slice and dice it, and even make JSON out of my grandmother’s chicken scratch—assuming grandma’s recipe was hosted on GitHub and formatted like computer code. But download a file? Move it around? “Sorry, that’s your job, meatbag.” I’m still pushing buttons like it’s 1999.

I pitted it against Google Drive. First pass? It failed—threw its digital hands in the air. But here’s the difference between toaster-AI and modern software: Comet actually kept at it. I flipped some windows, clicked into folders, and with the right page “visible,” it did the damn comparison. It doesn’t give up, it just demands you do a bit of the heavy lifting. Not exactly SkyNet, but I’ll take the hustle.

A few more rounds and the whole process was humming. New recipe? I parse the PDF, Comet turns it into JSON, slaps it right into the repo—and even updates the homepage like magic. Except when it doesn’t. Except when it can’t. That’s when I’m nudging it, spoon-feeding which window to look at, because it can “do anything you see in the browser” but not one click more.

Here’s what the friendly browser-brain gets right:

• Editing files, updating lists—works like a charm (if you’re already in the right window).
• Parsing, converting, structuring data—you’d swear a human intern was doing the grind, only with fewer typos and no coffee breaks.
• If it screws up, you navigate a little, poke it again, and it actually gets back up for round two.

Here’s what gets lost in translation:

• File downloads? Not a chance.
• Anything that smells like “drag and drop” or “upload from my desktop”—no dice.
• If your data is hiding outside a web window, you, dear reader, are the delivery service.

So what did I learn, besides never trusting an AI with your grocery list? These so-called “assistants” work best as the world’s most stubborn, literal-minded, patient intern. Give them structure—they shine. Expect magic, get a shrug and a cheerful “Can’t do that, but here’s how you can.”

I won’t say Comet replaced hours of manual drudgery. It’s more like owning a self-driving car that occasionally hands you the wheel and says, “I don’t do left turns.” Still, my recipe book is smarter, my code is cleaner, and I get to pretend I’ve automated my kitchen—well, the paperwork at least.

Next time, maybe I’ll put it up against the ultimate test: three ingredients, no power, and one AI that can’t boil water.