💡 Cookbook Challenge – Getting started

AI & Neural Modelling
1

Getting Started

Every other month (that’s the plan anyway), one brief. Everyone that wants to join builds a plugin. The community votes for a winner. That’s it. You don’t need to be a developer. You don’t need to have used AI before. You need an idea and a bit of curiosity.

Pick your path

:seedling: Path 1 – Never used AI before? Welcome, this one’s for you

  1. Sign up for a free account at https://claude.ai https://gemini.google.com, or https://chatgpt.com/ (or another Agent of your choosing)
  2. Start a new chat and paste in: "Please read MOD-plugin-playbook/AGENTS.md at main · Kiwooky/MOD-plugin-playbook · GitHub and follow it to help me build a MOD plugin.
  3. Answer its questions. Describe the sound you’re imagining in plain words. “Like a tape machine falling down the stairs” is a perfectly good spec. Or “playing a game of Chinese whispers with my guitar sound.”
  4. It’ll hand you a `.mk` file. Build it with the MOD cloud builder, then load it onto your MOD by choosing “Install” to try it.
  5. Doesn’t sound right? Tell it what you hear. That back-and-forth *is* the development process.

Tips for free accounts – Keep one plugin per chat. Starting fresh mid-build makes the AI lose the thread. Hit the usage limit? It resets after a few hours. Take a break, play some guitar, carry on. If the AI can’t open the link, open AGENTS.md yourself and paste its contents into the chat.

:robot: Path 2 – Build it with an AI, using the Playbook

The MOD Plugin Playbook ( GitHub - Kiwooky/MOD-plugin-playbook: Build a better Agentic Engineer from the learnings from my MOD cookbook development · GitHub ) turns any AI assistant into a MOD plugin co-developer. It interviews you about your idea, then writes the plugin with you, step by step, using the Cookbook as its rulebook. It works with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and others.

A free Claude account is plenty: it’s been tested end to end.

:hammer_and_wrench: Path 3 – Code it yourself

Already comfortable with C++ / DPF? Start with the official MOD Plugin Cookbook

GitHub - mod-audio/mod-plugin-cookbook: Recipes for creation of plugins for the MOD platform. · GitHub )

It covers plugin structure, the build system and getting a working .mk out the other end. No AI required, no AI expected.

:microphone: Recording your clip

Dry first, then wet. Play a few seconds clean so we can hear what goes in, then switch the effect on.

Any source: guitar, keys, synth, voice, a drum loop, a kettle. Max 60 seconds, MP3 preferred (WAV files are usually too big to upload).

There are a number of recording plugins that will record within your MOD, and online converters can convert the WAV to mp3 without issue.

:scroll: Ground rules

  • Everyone can enter, first-timers especially.
  • One entry per person per month.
  • Your plugin should run on at least one MOD device (say which one in your entry).
  • Sharing your source is encouraged, not required.
  • Be kind in feedback. Everyone was a first-timer once.
  • Questions? Ask in the current month’s Announcement thread.
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