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Proviant — user guide

Proviant keeps track of the food in your home: what you have, where it is, when it expires, and what needs reordering. It runs on your own server; the data never leaves it.

This wiki is the guide for using the app. For installing and running it, see Getting started; for the technical background, see the README.

Where to begin

If you want to …	Read
set the app up for the first time	Getting started
know how stock is counted and stored	Stock
book things in and out quickly	Scanning
correct what the app believes you have	Stocktake
create and maintain products	Items
cook from what is in the house	Recipes · Meal plan
order groceries from Picnic	Ordering · Delivery check
find out who booked what, and when	Journal
manage locations, users, your own account	Storage locations · Users · Account
fix something that is not working	FAQ & troubleshooting

The idea in one minute

Everything you own is stored as a batch: a number of packs of one item, in one location, with one best-before date. Buy two jars of the same jam with different dates and you get two batches — that is what makes the expiry warnings possible.

Booking out always takes the batch that expires first (FEFO, first expired first out), across all locations. You never have to choose which jar to use up; the app already did.

Every change to stock is written to the Journal, with who did it, when, where and how. Nothing changes silently.

Three rules worth knowing early

1. Orders are never placed automatically. Proviant fills your Picnic basket and stops there. Checkout stays in the Picnic app, always.
2. Nothing is ever deleted where history matters. Storage locations are retired rather than deleted, and journal entries survive the deletion of the item they refer to.
3. Your own words stay your own. Item names, tags, recipes and location names are never translated, whichever interface language you pick.