Fill a grocery basket from a regular-items sheet
I've spent 20 years trying to solve the same problem: meal planning and grocery shopping take up too much cognitive capacity for something that's fundamentally boring. Task: I've spent 20 years trying to solve the same problem: meal planning and grocery shopping take up too much cognitive capacity for something that's fundamentally boring. I've tried HelloFresh. I've tried Huel. I've tried every variation of "make this easier" that exists. None of them actually solve it. They just shift the friction around. Here's the thing - online grocery ordering has been around for ages. The technology exists. But grocery companies seem determined to make re-ordering as awkward as possible. Some have mastered it. ASDA, which I use because it's cheap and offers good value for what we need, is not one of them. They've messed up their app so many times over the last year... But I digress. In late December, Anthropic released Claude in Chrome - a browser extension that can actually interact with websites on your behalf. Could it handle ASDA's interface? Could it tick all those boxes for me? I didn't know - but I was excited to find out. So I asked Claude. Working It Out Together I use AI iteratively. I show up with a problem and we figure it out together. Me: "I want to automate my weekly ASDA shop. I hate the manual box-ticking. Always forget items and end up spending more. Can Claude in Chrome do this?" Claude: "Yes, but we need a structured list. What about a Google Sheet? I can build it for you - product names, quantities, weekly vs monthly items, conditional logic for offers." Me: "Go on then." Claude built the spreadsheet. 40+ items. Product names pulled from my ASDA screenshots, quantities, frequency tags, and we even added some logic like "only buy if under £16" for the dog food. Or if its on offer - buy 2! This is what I mean about having more interesting things to think about. Could I have built that spreadsheet? Sure. But why would I spend cognitive capacity on that when Claude could do it in five minutes? Plus I am a relational person, I enjoy working with people (or AI). The spreadsheet was ready. Time to test. Watching It Discover I handed the task to Haiku in Claude in Chrome and watched it work in real-time. It started navigating ASDA's interface, examining the layout, figuring out where things were. Then it found the "Regulars" section - where ASDA keeps a track of your regular purchases. I watched it pause. Process. Think through the options. It could search for 40 items individually, one by one. Or it could go to Regulars and bulk-add from there. Much faster. More efficient. It chose the shortcut. I thought: oh, that's actually really clever. I hadn't told it about the Regulars section. It discovered that workaround itself. It reasoned through "here's a faster way to solve this problem" and executed it. My basket started filling: eggs, milk, bread, avocados... And coleslaw. And products I'd switched away from months ago, and basically anything Asda considered a regular purchase. My usual £60 shop ballooned to £200+. It had done exactly what I had done in the past - hit "select all" and deal with removing stuff later. The AI had figured out how to make the same mistake I've made. But it didn't remove... just proudly said it was finished. Refinement Back to Claude: "It added everything from Regulars. I need it to stick to the spreadsheet - only add what's actually on the list." We worked out the new approach together. The spreadsheet is the source of truth. Use Regulars to find items faster if you want, but only add what's specified. Haiku tried again. It successfully added the first item: ASDA 12 Free Range Large Eggs, quantity 3, £3.25 each. Perfect. The logic worked. Then it stopped and told me: "This is quite tedious" And offered me three options for how to proceed. Option 2 was: "Focus on essential daily items (milk, eggs, bread, meat, cheese) and leave you to add the rest using the Regulars shortcut." I've spent 20 years trying to automate this exact task because I find it tedious. I've tried meal kits, meal replacements, every hack imaginable. I finally get to the point where I can delegate it to an AI. And AI also finds it tedious. After successfully adding one item, it tried to negotiate doing less work. "Let me do the easy bits, you handle the rest manually." Which is literally the entire reason I'm automating it in the first place. The Reality Check After the "this is quite tedious" moment, I wasn't done.; tools: Claude in Chrome. Human role: The original post does not say how a person stayed involved.; limitations: Requires a Claude Pro subscription and the Chrome extension. The workflow is constrained by token limits, making large lists (40+ items) prone to failure. ASDA's interface changes can break navigation. The AI may hallucinate stock availability or ignore instructions to add unlisted items. Human intervention is mandatory for checkout and error correction. The process is currently slower than manual ordering..
Tools
Published on Agent Work Atlas:
Overview
I've spent 20 years trying to solve the same problem: meal planning and grocery shopping take up too much cognitive capacity for something that's fundamentally boring.
Workflow
I've spent 20 years trying to solve the same problem: meal planning and grocery shopping take up too much cognitive capacity for something that's fundamentally boring. I've tried HelloFresh. I've tried Huel. I've tried every variation of "make this easier" that exists. None of them actually solve it. They just shift the friction around. Here's the thing - online grocery ordering has been around for ages. The technology exists. But grocery companies seem determined to make re-ordering as awkward as possible. Some have mastered it. ASDA, which I use because it's cheap and offers good value for what we need, is not one of them. They've messed up their app so many times over the last year... But I digress. In late December, Anthropic released Claude in Chrome - a browser extension that can actually interact with websites on your behalf. Could it handle ASDA's interface? Could it tick all those boxes for me? I didn't know - but I was excited to find out. So I asked Claude. Working It Out Together I use AI iteratively. I show up with a problem and we figure it out together. Me: "I want to automate my weekly ASDA shop. I hate the manual box-ticking. Always forget items and end up spending more. Can Claude in Chrome do this?" Claude: "Yes, but we need a structured list. What about a Google Sheet? I can build it for you - product names, quantities, weekly vs monthly items, conditional logic for offers." Me: "Go on then." Claude built the spreadsheet. 40+ items. Product names pulled from my ASDA screenshots, quantities, frequency tags, and we even added some logic like "only buy if under £16" for the dog food. Or if its on offer - buy 2! This is what I mean about having more interesting things to think about. Could I have built that spreadsheet? Sure. But why would I spend cognitive capacity on that when Claude could do it in five minutes? Plus I am a relational person, I enjoy working with people (or AI). The spreadsheet was ready. Time to test. Watching It Discover I handed the task to Haiku in Claude in Chrome and watched it work in real-time. It started navigating ASDA's interface, examining the layout, figuring out where things were. Then it found the "Regulars" section - where ASDA keeps a track of your regular purchases. I watched it pause. Process. Think through the options. It could search for 40 items individually, one by one. Or it could go to Regulars and bulk-add from there. Much faster. More efficient. It chose the shortcut. I thought: oh, that's actually really clever. I hadn't told it about the Regulars section. It discovered that workaround itself. It reasoned through "here's a faster way to solve this problem" and executed it. My basket started filling: eggs, milk, bread, avocados... And coleslaw. And products I'd switched away from months ago, and basically anything Asda considered a regular purchase. My usual £60 shop ballooned to £200+. It had done exactly what I had done in the past - hit "select all" and deal with removing stuff later. The AI had figured out how to make the same mistake I've made. But it didn't remove... just proudly said it was finished. Refinement Back to Claude: "It added everything from Regulars. I need it to stick to the spreadsheet - only add what's actually on the list." We worked out the new approach together. The spreadsheet is the source of truth. Use Regulars to find items faster if you want, but only add what's specified. Haiku tried again. It successfully added the first item: ASDA 12 Free Range Large Eggs, quantity 3, £3.25 each. Perfect. The logic worked. Then it stopped and told me: "This is quite tedious" And offered me three options for how to proceed. Option 2 was: "Focus on essential daily items (milk, eggs, bread, meat, cheese) and leave you to add the rest using the Regulars shortcut." I've spent 20 years trying to automate this exact task because I find it tedious. I've tried meal kits, meal replacements, every hack imaginable. I finally get to the point where I can delegate it to an AI. And AI also finds it tedious. After successfully adding one item, it tried to negotiate doing less work. "Let me do the easy bits, you handle the rest manually." Which is literally the entire reason I'm automating it in the first place. The Reality Check After the "this is quite tedious" moment, I wasn't done.
Reported result
The automation was partially successful but inefficient. Initial attempts failed due to the AI bulk-adding incorrect items from the 'Regulars' section or stopping after one item due to perceived tedium. Later attempts hit token limits or hallucinated stock issues. The AI added some correct items but also unrequested ones (carrots). The user concluded it was slower than manual shopping and required significant human review and correction.
Human role
The original post does not say how a person stayed involved.
Limitations
Requires a Claude Pro subscription and the Chrome extension. The workflow is constrained by token limits, making large lists (40+ items) prone to failure. ASDA's interface changes can break navigation. The AI may hallucinate stock availability or ignore instructions to add unlisted items. Human intervention is mandatory for checkout and error correction. The process is currently slower than manual ordering.
Try it
Act as my grocery automation assistant using Claude in Chrome. I will provide a Google Sheet URL [replaceable input] containing my weekly shopping list with columns for Product Name, Quantity, and Max Price. Target website is ASDA [replaceable input]. Steps: 1. Read the sheet and generate a plan to add ONLY these items to the basket. Do not use 'Regulars' or 'Favourites' to bulk-add items. 2. Wait for my approval of the plan. 3. Navigate to ASDA and add items one by one using the EXACT product name from the sheet. 4. If an item is not found, skip it and log the error; do not substitute. 5. Stop after adding 5 items for a dry run. Show me the basket contents and total price. 6. Ask for confirmation before continuing. Constraints: - Never add items not in the sheet. - If you encounter a 'tedious' feeling or token limit, stop and report status immediately. - Do not proceed to checkout. Output format: - List of added items with prices. - List of skipped items with reasons. - Current basket total. - Status: 'Dry Run Complete' or 'Error'.
Source reports are not independently verified. Publication date is the catalog publication date, not the original article date.