February 3, 2026
Bake it till you make it
Show HN: Craftplan – I built my wife a production management tool for her bakery
Bakery husband drops all‑in‑one planner; makers cheer, nitpickers squabble
TLDR: A dev built Craftplan, a free, self‑hosted tool to manage small‑batch production, inspired by his wife’s bakery. Comments swing from love for allergen tracking and clean design to a playful fight over “two decimal places” on progress bars—proof that even pastries spark precision debates.
A developer baked up Craftplan for his wife’s bakery—and the internet is eating it up. It’s an open‑source, self‑hosted “business‑in‑a‑box” for small makers, bundling catalog, orders, inventory, production schedules, and even allergen tracking. Think ERP (enterprise resource planning) without the corporate headache, tailored for small batches and real‑world kitchens.
The crowd’s vibe? Mostly heart‑eyes and hungry curiosity. One fan declared it perfect for 3D printing, proving this bakery brainchild has range beyond bread. Another praised the clean design and the “it just works” feel. But the funniest skirmish erupted over a tiny detail: “Why do you need two decimal places for percent complete?” Cue jokes about tracking cake slices down to 0.01 of a crumb and whether precision belongs in pastry.
The allergen tracking got big applause—and a dash of drama. Commenters celebrated being able to trace ingredients across batches, warning that one bad spice (hello, “ground cumin contaminated with god knows what”) can wreck a week’s work. Meanwhile, folks wrestling with messy spreadsheets and Frankenstein’d Notion setups sighed in relief: finally, a tool built for make‑to‑order chaos that doesn’t require ten subscriptions.
Craftplan drops demo creds, supports calendar feeds, emails, and APIs, but the real headline is the community’s “shut up and ship” energy—plus a sprinkle of nitpick spice.
Key Points
- •Craftplan is an open-source, self-hostable ERP tailored for small-batch artisanal manufacturing and craft businesses.
- •It consolidates catalog/BOM, orders/invoices, production batching, inventory with lot traceability, purchasing, CRM, and forecasting.
- •Integrations include CSV import/export, transactional email providers, iCal calendar feeds, and APIs (JSON:API and GraphQL).
- •Access control uses admin/staff roles with policy-based authorization; API keys are encrypted at rest and CORS is configurable.
- •Deployment uses Docker Compose to start Craftplan, PostgreSQL, and MinIO; documentation, development setup, demo credentials, and AGPLv3 license are provided.