From Frustration to Automation: Automating Food Orders for ~700 Users

The Problem

At FF21 (our coliving space), everyone must place next-day food orders before 6 PM. If you forget to place the order before the cutoff time, you risk going hungry or scrambling for an alternative last-minute meal.

After experiencing way too many "Oops, I missed dinner" moments myself, I realized that relying on human memory for a strict daily deadline was a recipe for disaster. I knew something had to change. Being someone who believes that technology should simplify life, I decided to build a solution.

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The Solution

I needed a way to automate the daily ordering process without requiring manual intervention every day. The solution involved two main steps:

1. Reverse-Engineering the API: I set up my mobile phone through a proxy to intercept and analyze the network traffic between the official food ordering app and its backend. This allowed me to understand the exact API endpoints and payload structures used to place orders.
2. Building the Automation Script: Once I had the API endpoints, I wrote a script that automatically formats and places my preferred food order every single day before the deadline.

No more manual effort, no more missed meals. But I didn't stop there.

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Scaling it to the Community

I realized I wasn't the only one struggling with the 6 PM deadline. What started as a personal script could help almost everyone in the coliving space.

I turned this personal solution into a public service for everyone in FF21. I built a simple, intuitive web app, deployed it at ffood.devakash.in, and shared it with others in the community.

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The Impact

The adoption was rapid. Within just the first week of sharing the tool, the numbers spoke for themselves:

• ✅ Over 180 users signed up immediately
• ✅ More than 200 food orders were automated daily
• ✅ Over 1500+ meals were successfully ordered without any manual intervention

8 Months Later

That small weekend project quietly kept running for 8 months. At its peak:

• ~700 users were relying on the app to secure their daily meals
• 1,20,000+ orders had been automated
• Not a single one of those users had to remember the 6 PM deadline

What started as a fix for my own frustration ended up saving time and mental overhead for hundreds of people.

Unfortunately, FF21 eventually updated their app and changed the underlying API — breaking the endpoints and authentication flow that the automation relied on. With the backend no longer compatible, I had to shut the service down. It was a good run.

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Feedback From the Community

When I shared the project, the response and comments from the community were incredibly rewarding. The feedback highlighted the real-world value of solving unglamorous, everyday problems (you can check out the original comments on the LinkedIn post):

• "A complete lifesaver" — Several users highlighted how the tool removed a consistent source of daily anxiety. Not having to set an alarm for 5:55 PM just to order food was a huge quality-of-life upgrade.
• Eliminated Mental Clutter — The most common feedback was about the mental bandwidth it freed up. People loved that they could simply set their preferences once and trust the system.
• Zero Missed Meals — Many commented on the rock-solid reliability, noting they hadn't missed a single dinner since signing up.
• Inspiration — Other developers and tech enthusiasts in the comments appreciated the clever use of reverse-engineering to build a practical, high-impact tool.

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Result

It’s amazing how a small idea born out of personal frustration can scale to solve a problem for nearly 700 people. This project was a great reminder that the best engineering solutions don't always have to be overly complex—they just have to solve a real pain point reliably.

I'm incredibly grateful for the positive response from the community and excited to keep building tools that make everyday life easier!

Curious how it actually works under the hood? Read the technical deep-dive: Building the Food Automation Engine: A Technical Deep-Dive — covering the reverse-engineered API, authentication chain, cron scheduling, and the full codebase walkthrough.