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Menuvision

Build beautiful HTML photo menus from restaurant URLs, PDFs, or photos using Gemini Vision and AI im

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Downloads: 7,752 downloads
Version: 1.0.0

Overview

Build beautiful HTML photo menus from restaurant URLs, PDFs, or photos using Gemini Vision and AI image generation.

Complete Documentation

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name: menuvision description: "Build beautiful HTML photo menus from restaurant URLs, PDFs, or photos using Gemini Vision and AI image generation" version: 1.0.0 emoji: "🍽️" user-invocable: true metadata: {"openclaw": {"requires": {"env": ["GOOGLE_API_KEY"], "bins": ["python3"]}, "primaryEnv": "GOOGLE_API_KEY", "homepage": "https://github.com/ademczuk/MenuVision"}}

MenuVision - Restaurant Menu Builder

Build a beautiful HTML photo menu for any restaurant from URLs, PDFs, or photos.

When to Use

When the user wants to create a digital menu for a restaurant. Triggers: "build a menu", "create restaurant menu", "menu from PDF", "menu from photos", "digital menu", "menuvision".

Quick Start


Extract:  URL/PDF/photo  →  menu_data.json     (Gemini Vision)
Generate: menu_data.json →  images/*.jpg        (Gemini Image)
Build:    menu_data.json + images → Menu.html   (CSS/JS inline, images relative)



Example usage (ask the AI):
"Build a menu for https://www.shoyu.at/menus"
"Create a photo menu from this PDF" (attach file)
"Make a digital menu from these photos of a restaurant menu"

Pipeline Components

The AI agent creates these scripts:

| Script | Purpose |
|--------|---------|
|

extract_menu.py

 | Extract menu data from URL/PDF/photo → structured JSON |
|

generate_images.py

 | Generate food photos via Gemini Image |
|

build_menu.py

 | Build HTML menu from JSON + images (CSS/JS inline, images as relative paths) |
|

publish_menu.py

 | (Optional) Publish HTML to GitHub Pages |



DATA CONTRACT (Critical)

All three pipeline stages share this exact JSON schema. The AI agent MUST use these field names — any deviation breaks the pipeline.

menu_data.json Schema

json
{
  "restaurant": {
    "name": "Restaurant Name (if visible)",
    "cuisine": "cuisine type (Chinese, Indian, Austrian, Japanese, etc.)",
    "tagline": "any subtitle or tagline"
  },
  "sections": [
    {
      "title": "Section Name (in primary language)",
      "title_secondary": "Section name in secondary language (if present, else empty string)",
      "category": "food or drink",
      "note": "Any section note (e.g. 'served with rice', 'Mon-Fri 11-15h')",
      "items": [
        {
          "code": "M1",
          "name": "Dish Name (primary language)",
          "name_secondary": "Name in secondary language (if present)",
          "description": "Brief description (primary language)",
          "description_secondary": "Description in secondary language (if present)",
          "price": "12,90",
          "price_prefix": "",
          "allergens": "A C F",
          "dietary": ["vegan", "spicy"],
          "variants": []
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "allergen_legend": {
    "A": "Gluten",
    "B": "Crustaceans"
  },
  "metadata": {
    "languages": ["German", "English"],
    "currency": "EUR"
  }
}



Field Reference

| Field | Type | Required | Notes |
|-------|------|----------|-------|
|

restaurant.name

 | string | Yes | Display name in HTML header |
|

restaurant.cuisine | string | Yes | Passed to build_food_prompt()

 as cuisine context |
|

restaurant.tagline

 | string | No | Subtitle line in HTML header |
|

sections[].title

 | string | Yes | Section heading in primary language |
|

sections[].title_secondary

 | string | No | Section heading in secondary language |
|

sections[].category | "food" or "drink" | Yes | Drives food grid vs drink list layout. Only "food"

 items get generated images. |
|

sections[].note

 | string | No | Section-level note (e.g. "served with rice", "Mon-Fri 11-15h") |
|

items[].code

 | string | Yes | Unique per item. Links to image filename. Use existing codes (M1, K2) or generate (A1, A2) |
|

items[].name

 | string | Yes | Primary language. For CJK menus, this is the CJK name |
|

items[].name_secondary

 | string | No | Secondary language. For CJK menus, this is the English/Latin name |
|

items[].description | string | No | Brief description. Fed to build_food_prompt()

 for image generation |
|

items[].description_secondary

 | string | No | Description in secondary language |
|

items[].price

 | string | Yes | Preserve original format ("12,90" not "12.90") |
|

items[].price_prefix

 | string | No | e.g. "ab" (starting from), "ca." |
|

items[].variants | array | No | [{"label": "6 Stk", "price": "8,90"}, ...]

 — set main price to smallest variant |
|

items[].allergens

 | string | No | Space-separated codes exactly as printed: "A C F" |
|

items[].dietary | array | No | ["vegan", "vegetarian", "spicy", "gluten-free", "halal", "kosher"]

|
|

allergen_legend | object | No | Map of allergen codes to display names: {"A": "Gluten", ...}

|
|

metadata.currency

 | string | Yes | ISO code: "EUR", "USD", "JPY", "CNY", "THB", etc. |
|

metadata.languages | array | No | Languages detected in the menu: ["German", "English"]

 |



EXTRACTION PROMPT

Send this exact prompt to Gemini. It defines the schema AND the extraction rules. Do not paraphrase it.


You are a restaurant menu data extractor. Analyze this menu content and extract ALL items into structured JSON.

Return this exact JSON structure:
{
  "restaurant": {
    "name": "Restaurant Name (if visible)",
    "cuisine": "cuisine type (Chinese, Indian, Austrian, Japanese, etc.)",
    "tagline": "any subtitle or tagline"
  },
  "sections": [
    {
      "title": "Section Name (in primary language)",
      "title_secondary": "Section name in secondary language (if present, else empty string)",
      "category": "food or drink",
      "note": "Any section note (e.g. 'served with rice', 'Mon-Fri 11-15h')",
      "items": [
        {
          "code": "M1",
          "name": "Dish Name (primary language)",
          "name_secondary": "Name in secondary language (if present)",
          "description": "Brief description (primary language)",
          "description_secondary": "Description in secondary language (if present)",
          "price": "12,90",
          "price_prefix": "",
          "allergens": "A C F",
          "dietary": ["vegan", "spicy"],
          "variants": []
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "allergen_legend": {
    "A": "Gluten",
    "B": "Crustaceans"
  },
  "metadata": {
    "languages": ["German", "English"],
    "currency": "EUR"
  }
}

CRITICAL RULES:
Extract EVERY item. Do not skip ANY dish, drink, or menu entry.
Preserve original item codes/numbers if present (M1, K2, S3, etc.). If none exist, generate sequential codes per section (e.g. A1, A2 for appetizers, M1, M2 for mains).
Extract prices EXACTLY as written (preserve comma/period format).
If an item has a price prefix like "ab" (starting from), capture it in "price_prefix".
If an item has multiple size/quantity variants (e.g. 6 Stk / 12 Stk / 18 Stk at different prices), use the "variants" array:
   [{"label": "6 Stk", "price": "8,90"}, {"label": "12 Stk", "price": "15,90"}]
   In this case, set the main "price" to the smallest variant's price.
Capture allergen codes exactly as shown (letters, numbers, or symbols).
If an allergen legend is visible anywhere, include it in "allergen_legend".
Identify dietary flags from descriptions/icons: vegan, vegetarian, spicy, gluten-free, halal, kosher.
If the menu is bilingual, capture BOTH languages. Put the primary/dominant language in name/description and the secondary in name_secondary/description_secondary.
For set menus or lunch specials with a fixed price covering multiple choices, create a section with note explaining the format, and list each choice as an item.
Classify each section as "food" or "drink".
For drinks, still extract name, price, and any size variants.

Return ONLY valid JSON. No markdown fences, no explanatory text.



Vision Prompt Variant
For image-based inputs (screenshots, PDF pages, photos), prepend a context line before the base prompt:

python
EXTRACTION_PROMPT_VISION = (
    "You are a restaurant menu data extractor. "
    "This is a photo/scan of a restaurant menu page.\n\n"
    "Return this exact JSON structure:"
    + EXTRACTION_PROMPT.split("Return this exact JSON structure:")[1]
)



Then each input type adds its own prefix:

| Input Type | Prefix prepended to

EXTRACTION_PROMPT_VISION

 |
|---|---|
| Screenshot |

"This is a screenshot of a restaurant menu webpage at {url}. Extract ALL visible menu items.\n\n"

 |
| PDF page |

"This is page {n} of a restaurant menu PDF. Extract ALL menu items from this page.\n\n"

 |
| Photo |

"This is a photograph of a restaurant menu. Extract ALL visible menu items.\n\n"

 |
| Text (static HTML) | Use

EXTRACTION_PROMPT

 directly (no vision variant needed) |



GEMINI API CONFIGURATION

python
import os
from google import genai

client = genai.Client(api_key=os.environ["GOOGLE_API_KEY"])

def gemini_config():
    return genai.types.GenerateContentConfig(
        max_output_tokens=65536,          # 64K — needed for large menus
        response_mime_type="application/json",  # JSON mode — critical
    )

Model: gemini-2.5-flash (default)
response = client.models.generate_content(
    model="gemini-2.5-flash",
    contents=prompt_text,    # or [image, prompt_text] for vision
    config=gemini_config(),
)

ALWAYS check for truncation
if response.candidates[0].finish_reason.name == "MAX_TOKENS":
    print("WARNING: Response truncated. Menu may be incomplete.")





IMAGE PROMPT TEMPLATE

Use this exact function. It produces the casual phone-photo aesthetic that makes menus look authentic.

python
def build_food_prompt(name: str, description: str, cuisine: str = "") -> str:
    cuisine_context = f" {cuisine}" if cuisine else ""
    food_desc = f"{name}"
    if description and description != name:
        food_desc += f" ({description})"

    return (
        f"A photo of {food_desc} at a{cuisine_context} restaurant. "
        f"Taken casually with a phone from across the table at a 45-degree angle. "
        f"The plate sits on a dark wooden table and takes up only 30% of the frame. "
        f"Lots of visible table surface around the plate. Chopsticks, napkins, "
        f"a glass of water, and small side dishes scattered naturally nearby. "
        f"Blurred restaurant interior in the background — other diners, pendant lights, "
        f"wooden chairs visible but out of focus. Warm ambient lighting. "
        f"NOT a close-up. NOT professional food photography. "
        f"It looks like someone quickly snapped a photo before eating."
    )





IMAGE GENERATION API CALLS

Gemini 2.5 Flash Image

python
import os, io
from PIL import Image
from google import genai

client = genai.Client(api_key=os.environ["GOOGLE_API_KEY"])

def generate_gemini(client, name, description, output_path, cuisine=""):
    prompt = build_food_prompt(name, description, cuisine)

    response = client.models.generate_content(
        model="gemini-2.5-flash-image",       # NOT gemini-2.5-flash (that's text-only)
        contents=prompt,
        config=genai.types.GenerateContentConfig(
            response_modalities=["TEXT", "IMAGE"],  # critical — requests image output
        ),
    )

    # Extract generated image from response parts
    for part in response.candidates[0].content.parts:
        if part.inline_data is not None:
            img = Image.open(io.BytesIO(part.inline_data.data)).convert("RGB")
            # Center-crop to square, resize to 800x800
            w, h = img.size
            side = min(w, h)
            left = (w - side) // 2
            top = (h - side) // 2
            img = img.crop((left, top, left + side, top + side))
            img = img.resize((800, 800), Image.LANCZOS)
            img.save(str(output_path), "JPEG", quality=82)
            return
    raise RuntimeError("No image in Gemini response")



Skip drinks
Only generate images for

category == "food"

 sections. Drinks get a text-only list in the HTML output.



MULTILINGUAL / CJK HANDLING

Menus can be in ANY language. The pipeline handles this through bilingual fields and smart prompt routing.

Extraction (all languages)

name / description = primary language (whatever the menu is mostly written in)

name_secondary / description_secondary = secondary language (if bilingual)


Works for: German/English, Chinese/English, Japanese/English, Thai/English, Arabic/English, Korean/English, etc.

Image Generation (CJK-safe prompting)
CJK characters produce bad image prompts. Before calling

build_food_prompt()

, swap to the Latin name:

python
def prepare_for_image_gen(name, name_secondary, description):
    """Use Latin-script name for image prompts. CJK → use secondary name."""
    display_name = name
    if name_secondary:
        if any(ord(c) > 0x2E80 for c in name):  # CJK/Hangul/Kana detection
            display_name = name_secondary
            description = description or name
        else:
            description = description or name_secondary
    return display_name, description



Unicode ranges covered by

ord(c) > 0x2E80:


CJK Unified Ideographs (Chinese characters)
Hiragana / Katakana (Japanese)
Hangul (Korean)
CJK Compatibility, Radicals, Extensions

HTML Output (all scripts)

name renders as the large display text

name_secondary renders below it in smaller text

Both use Google Fonts with CJK fallback (Noto Sans SC, Noto Sans JP, Noto Sans KR)





FILE NAMING CONVENTIONS

Auto-derivation
All filenames are derived from the restaurant name or source URL:

python
stem = "shoyu"  # derived from URL domain, PDF filename, or restaurant name
data_file = f"menu_data_{stem}.json"
images_dir = Path(f"images/{stem}")
html_file = f"{restaurant_name}_Menu.html"  # e.g. "Shoyu_Menu.html"



Image files


images/{restaurant_stem}/{code}.jpg

restaurant_stem = data filename minus "menu_data_" prefix
Example: menu_data_shoyu.json → images/shoyu/M1.jpg



Image path matching (in build step)
Returns POSIX-style string paths with

 prefix for cross-platform HTML compatibility:

python
def find_image(code: str, images_dir: Path):
    """Return relative POSIX path string to image, or None."""
    if not images_dir.is_dir():
        return None
    rel = images_dir.as_posix()
    if not rel.startswith("./"):
        rel = "./" + rel
    # 1. Exact match
    for ext in ("jpg", "jpeg", "webp", "png"):
        candidate = images_dir / f"{code}.{ext}"
        if candidate.exists():
            return f"{rel}/{code}.{ext}"
    # 2. Case-insensitive fallback
    for f in images_dir.iterdir():
        if f.stem.lower() == code.lower() and f.suffix.lower() in (".jpg", ".jpeg", ".webp", ".png"):
            return f"{rel}/{f.name}"
    return None



Output HTML


{RestaurantName}_Menu.html    # CSS/JS inline, images as relative file paths



Image rendering (build step)
The build script uses

find_image()

 to resolve each food item's photo, falling back to a gradient SVG placeholder when no image exists:

python
import base64
import html as html_mod

GRADIENT_COLORS = [
    ("#c41e3a", "#8b0000"), ("#ff6b6b", "#ee5a24"), ("#fdcb6e", "#e17055"),
    ("#00b894", "#00cec9"), ("#6c5ce7", "#a29bfe"), ("#e17055", "#d63031"),
    ("#00cec9", "#0984e3"), ("#fab1a0", "#e17055"), ("#e8a87c", "#d4956b"),
    ("#fd79a8", "#e84393"),
]

def make_placeholder_svg(code: str, name: str, secondary: str = "") -> str:
    """Generate a base64-encoded SVG placeholder when no image exists."""
    idx = hash(code) % len(GRADIENT_COLORS)
    c1, c2 = GRADIENT_COLORS[idx]
    display = html_mod.escape(secondary[:12] if secondary else name[:12])
    svg = f''''''
    b64 = base64.b64encode(svg.encode("utf-8")).decode("ascii")
    return f"data:image/svg+xml;base64,{b64}"


def image_tag(code: str, name: str, secondary: str, images_dir: Path, portable: bool = False) -> str:
    """Return  tag — real image OR gradient SVG placeholder.
    If portable=True, embed the real image as base64 data URI for single-file output."""
    real = find_image(code, images_dir)
    if real:
        if portable:
            img_path = images_dir.parent / real  # resolve relative path
            with open(img_path, "rb") as f:
                b64 = base64.b64encode(f.read()).decode("ascii")
            return f''
        return f''
    else:
        src = make_placeholder_svg(code, name, secondary)
        return f''



Output Modes

The HTML builder supports two output modes controlled by a

--portable

 flag:

| Mode | Flag | Images | Output | Use Case |
|------|------|--------|--------|----------|
| Portable (default) |

--portable or no GITHUB_* env vars | Base64 embedded in HTML | Single self-contained .html

 file | Open locally, email, drag-drop to any host |
| Deployable |

--no-portable or GITHUB_* env vars set | Relative paths (./images/stem/code.jpg) | HTML + images/

 directory | GitHub Pages, Netlify, any static host |

Portable mode embeds all food images as base64 data URIs directly in the HTML. File sizes are larger (~4-6MB for an 80-item menu) but the output is a single file that works everywhere with zero hosting setup. This is the default when no

GITHUB_*

 environment variables are set.

Deployable mode uses relative image paths and requires the HTML file and

images/

 directory to be hosted together. Use this when publishing to GitHub Pages or any static hosting service.



ROBUSTNESS PATTERNS

Retry Logic
All Gemini API calls should retry on transient failures:

python
import time

def call_with_retry(fn, args, max_retries=3, *kwargs):
    """Retry API calls with exponential backoff."""
    for attempt in range(max_retries):
        try:
            return fn(args, *kwargs)
        except Exception as e:
            if attempt == max_retries - 1:
                raise
            wait = 2  attempt
            print(f"  Retry {attempt + 1}/{max_retries} in {wait}s: {e}")
            time.sleep(wait)



JSON Response Parsing
Gemini sometimes wraps JSON in markdown fences or produces trailing commas. Parse defensively — try raw parse first, apply trailing comma fix only as last resort (unconditional fix can corrupt valid JSON strings containing

 patterns):

python
import re, json

def parse_gemini_json(raw: str) -> dict:
    """Parse JSON from Gemini, handling markdown fences and quirks."""
    text = raw.strip()
    # Strip markdown code fences
    if text.startswith("

"):
        text = re.sub(r"^

\w*\n?", "", text)
        text = re.sub(r"\n?

$", "", text)
    text = text.strip()
    # Try direct parse first
    try:
        return json.loads(text)
    except json.JSONDecodeError:
        pass
    # Try extracting JSON object from surrounding text
    match = re.search(r"\{.*\}", text, re.DOTALL)
    if match:
        candidate = match.group(0)
        try:
            return json.loads(candidate)
        except json.JSONDecodeError:
            pass
        # Fix trailing commas and retry
        candidate = re.sub(r",\s*([\]}])", r"\1", candidate)
        try:
            return json.loads(candidate)
        except json.JSONDecodeError:
            pass
    # Last resort: fix trailing commas on original
    text = re.sub(r",\s*([\]}])", r"\1", text)
    return json.loads(text)



Post-Processing
After extraction, run these cleanups:

python
def generate_codes(data: dict) -> dict:
    """Ensure every item has a unique code. Generates sequential codes per section
    if items have empty/missing codes (e.g. A1, A2 for appetizers, M1, M2 for mains)."""
    # ... assign prefix by section title, increment counter per section
    return data

def normalize_prices(data: dict) -> dict:
    """Normalize price formats: numeric → string, strip currency symbols,
    preserve comma/period format as-is."""
    # ... convert float/int to string, strip €/$, etc.
    return data



CURRENCY_MAP
Maps ISO currency codes to display symbols for the HTML output:

python
CURRENCY_MAP = {
    "EUR": "€", "USD": "$", "GBP": "£", "CHF": "CHF ",
    "JPY": "¥", "CNY": "¥", "INR": "₹", "AUD": "A$",
    "CAD": "C$", "SEK": "kr ", "NOK": "kr ", "DKK": "kr ",
    "THB": "฿", "KRW": "₩", "HKD": "HK$", "SGD": "S$",
    "CZK": "Kč ", "HUF": "Ft ", "PLN": "zł ", "TRY": "₺",
}





EXTRACTION DETAILS

HTML URLs

Fetch page with requests


Check text density to detect static vs JS-rendered:

density = len(soup.get_text(strip=True)) / len(raw_html)

Density override: If 5+ price patterns found (r"[$€£¥₹CHF]\s\d+[.,]\d{2}|\d+[.,]\d{2}\s[$€£¥₹]"), force density to 1.0 (treat as static)


Static (density >= 0.02): Clean HTML, send text to Gemini 2.5 Flash (JSON mode)
JS-rendered (density < 0.02, e.g. Wix, Framer): Screenshot with Playwright, send to Gemini Vision
Screenshot height cap: If screenshot > 6000px tall, resize proportionally to fit

Large menus (>12k chars text): Chunked extraction, merge like PDF multi-page. Deduplicate by tracking seen_codes = set() across chunks — for each item in each chunk's sections, skip if item["code"] already in seen_codes. Only append sections that still have items after dedup.



PDF Files
Convert each page to image via PyMuPDF (200 DPI)
Send each page image to Gemini Vision
Merge results across pages (deduplicate items by code)

Photos
Load image directly
Resize if >10MB
Send to Gemini Vision



HTML OUTPUT FEATURES
3-column Instagram-style grid (9:16 portrait tiles)
Gradient text overlay with name + secondary language + price
Tap-to-select with green checkmark
Receipt/bill on Selection tab with +/- quantity controls
Category pill navigation with scroll sync
Drinks section below grid with currency-prefixed prices
Allergen legend

Currency converter — minimalist button in header (e.g. € pill) that cycles or opens a picker for: EUR, USD, AUD, CAD, GBP. Converts all displayed prices client-side using snapshot exchange rates embedded at build time. Updates grid overlays, receipt totals, drink prices, and variant prices. Source currency comes from metadata.currency.


Fully responsive, dark mode

All CSS/JS inline, images via relative file paths (./images/{stem}/{code}.jpg), only Google Fonts external


Gradient SVG placeholders for missing images (inline base64 SVG, not raster)
CJK font loading via Google Fonts link tag:

family=Noto+Sans+SC:wght@400;700&family=Noto+Sans+JP:wght@400;700&family=Noto+Sans+KR:wght@400;700

CSS font-family stack: primary font, then 'Noto Sans SC', 'Noto Sans JP', 'Noto Sans KR', sans-serif



Currency Converter

A minimalist currency toggle built into the HTML output. All client-side, no API calls at runtime.

Implementation:

The build script embeds a RATES object with snapshot exchange rates (base: USD) at build time

Source currency is read from metadata.currency in the JSON data

All prices are stored in data-price attributes as numeric values (not raw strings like "12,90")

A small pill button in the header shows the current currency symbol (e.g. €)

Tapping opens a mini-picker or cycles through: EUR (€), USD ($), GBP (£), AUD (A$), CAD (C$)

On currency change, JavaScript converts all data-price values and updates displayed text

Receipt totals in the Selection tab also convert via convertPrice() using SOURCE_CURRENCY and currentCurrency


Variant prices also update

Selected currency persists in localStorage



Price parsing helper (build-time — converts string prices to numeric for

data-price

 attributes):

python
import re

def _parse_price_numeric(price: str) -> str:
    """Parse price string to numeric float for data-price attribute."""
    matches = re.findall(r"(\d+[.,]\d+)", price)
    if matches:
        return str(float(matches[-1].replace(",", ".")))
    return "0"

Usage in HTML template:
€12,90

javascript
// Snapshot rates embedded at build time (base: USD)
const RATES = { EUR: 0.92, USD: 1.00, GBP: 0.79, AUD: 1.54, CAD: 1.36 };
const SYMBOLS = { EUR: "€", USD: "$", GBP: "£", AUD: "A$", CAD: "C$" };
const SOURCE_CURRENCY = "EUR";  // from metadata.currency

function convertPrice(amount, fromCurrency, toCurrency) {
    const inUSD = amount / RATES[fromCurrency];
    return inUSD * RATES[toCurrency];
}

// Applied to: grid overlay prices, drink list prices, variant prices,
// AND receipt/selection tab totals (all elements with data-price attribute)



The build script should fetch current rates at build time (or use reasonable defaults if offline). Prices display with 2 decimal places in the target currency, using the target locale's format.

Branding Customization

bash
--name "Restaurant Name"     # Header brand text
--tagline "Cuisine · City"   # Subtitle
--accent "#ff6b00"           # Primary color (pills, active tab, drink prices)
--bg "#0a0a0a"               # Background color





COST SUMMARY

| Component | Cost |
|-----------|------|
| Extraction (per page) | ~$0.001 |
| Image generation (per food item) | $0.039 |
| 80 food items | ~$3.12 |
| Time (80 food items) | ~8 min |

Drinks are not image-generated (text-only list), so actual cost depends on food-to-drink ratio.

DEPENDENCIES

Requires Python 3.9+.

Required:

google-genai (extraction + image generation)

Pillow (image processing)



For HTML URLs:

requests (HTTP fetching)

beautifulsoup4 (HTML parsing)



For JS-rendered sites:

playwright (headless browser screenshots)



For PDF files:

PyMuPDF (PDF to image conversion)

bash
pip install google-genai Pillow requests beautifulsoup4 PyMuPDF
pip install playwright && playwright install chromium



ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

GOOGLE_API_KEY — Required for extraction and image generation

GITHUB_PAT — Required for GitHub Pages publishing

GITHUB_OWNER — Your GitHub username (default: reads from git config)

GITHUB_REPO — Your GitHub Pages repo name (default: menus)



PUBLISHING

Default: Portable HTML (no setup)

When no

GITHUB_*

 environment variables are set, the pipeline generates a self-contained HTML file with base64-embedded images. Users can:
Open the file directly in any browser
Email it or share via any file-sharing service
Upload to any static host (Netlify Drop, Vercel, GitHub Pages, S3)

No hosting setup, no API keys beyond

GOOGLE_API_KEY

, no git configuration needed.

Optional: GitHub Pages (requires setup)

For users who want a persistent gallery with multiple menus:

Create a GitHub repo for your menus (e.g. your-username/menus)

Enable GitHub Pages on the main branch


Set environment variables (must be accessible to the Python process):

bash
export GITHUB_PAT="your-personal-access-token"   # Required — used for git push auth
export GITHUB_OWNER="your-username"               # Required — YOUR GitHub username
export GITHUB_REPO="menus"                        # Optional — defaults to "menus"



Important:

publish_menu.py MUST read GITHUB_OWNER and GITHUB_REPO

 from environment variables. Never hardcode a specific user's repo. The generated code should construct the repo URL dynamically:

python
owner = os.environ["GITHUB_OWNER"]
repo = os.environ.get("GITHUB_REPO", "menus")
GITHUB_REPO = f"{owner}/{repo}"
GITHUB_PAGES_BASE = f"https://{owner}.github.io/{repo}"



Publish

bash
python publish_menu.py Restaurant_Menu.html --name "Restaurant" --tagline "Cuisine · City" --cuisine Type



Gallery:

https://.github.io//



How publishing works

publish_menu.py clones the menus repo to a temp directory on native filesystem (git clone --depth=1

), copies files there, commits, and pushes. This avoids all NTFS bind mount permission issues that occur when operating directly on mounted volumes in Docker containers.

Key implementation details:

git clone --depth=1 to a tempfile.mkdtemp() directory (native FS, proper POSIX permissions)

Copies HTML + images using shutil.copy() (not copy2 — avoids os.chmod() EPERM on NTFS)

find_image_dirs regex uses [^/"]+ (not [a-z_]+) to match Unicode chars in image dir names

Writes .meta_ JSON sidecar for gallery metadata

Rebuilds gallery index.html

Authenticates push via GITHUB_PAT env var embedded in the clone URL


Temp directory is cleaned up after push

MENUS_REPO_DIR (bind mount path) is only used for --list read-only queries



EXTERNAL ENDPOINTS

| Endpoint | Data Sent | Purpose |
|----------|-----------|---------|
|

generativelanguage.googleapis.com

 | Menu text, page screenshots, PDF page images, food photo prompts | Gemini API for extraction (JSON mode) and image generation |
| Target restaurant URL | HTTP GET only | Fetching the menu page HTML for extraction |
|

api.github.com | Generated HTML file, image files | Publishing menu to GitHub Pages (optional, requires GITHUB_PAT

) |
|

fonts.googleapis.com

 | None (CSS link in HTML output) | Google Fonts loaded client-side when menu HTML is opened in browser |

No analytics, telemetry, or tracking. No data is sent to any endpoint beyond those listed above.

SECURITY & PRIVACY

API keys: GOOGLE_API_KEY is read from environment variables, never hardcoded or logged


GitHub PAT: Used only for authenticated pushes to the user's own repo; never transmitted elsewhere
Restaurant data: Menu content is sent to the Gemini API for processing. No data is stored server-side beyond Google's standard API retention

Generated images: Stored locally in images/` directory. When published, uploaded only to the user's own GitHub Pages repo

No telemetry: The pipeline collects no analytics, metrics, or usage data

Local-first: All processing happens locally except Gemini API calls. The HTML output and images remain on the user's machine unless they explicitly publish