# PDR 008: Make recipe-import inference payment explicit

- HTML version: https://robbiepalmer.me/projects/recipe-site/pdrs/008-explicit-recipe-import-inference-payment
- Project: Recipe Site
- Status: Proposed
- Opened: 2026-10-08

## Context

Recipe Site pays for model inference through its OpenRouter account. An eligible
user may also have a ChatGPT plan that can fund supported recipe-import calls.
Using that allowance could reduce application spend, but not every user has an
eligible plan or wants to spend it on an import.

Failures make the payer boundary visible. If a user-funded request reaches a
plan limit, silently retrying with the application account would complete the
job by spending somebody else's budget. Sharing one user's plan with a
household would create the opposite problem.

## Proposed decision

Show the inference payment route when a user starts a recipe import. Keep the
application-funded OpenRouter route available to every authenticated user under
its normal quotas. Let an eligible user connect their own ChatGPT plan, choose
it as a default, and override the choice for one import.

Copy the selected route into the job input. A resumed job does not change payer
because account settings changed. One user's connected plan may fund only that
user's imports, even inside a shared household.

Never change payer silently. If a ChatGPT-plan request is unavailable,
ineligible, revoked, limited, or exhausted, stop with a recoverable status. The
user may retry the same route, explicitly switch to application-funded
OpenRouter subject to quota, or cancel.

Disconnecting a plan stops new plan-funded work and removes its authorization.
Existing accepted recipes and non-secret import provenance remain. The product
must not describe subscription inference as free merely because Recipe Site
cannot assign it a per-request price.

## Consequences

Eligible users can apply an allowance they already have while users without a
connected plan retain the standard import path. The interface and usage history
must distinguish who funded each attempt and explain the effect of switching on
retry.

The proposal adds consent, connection management, provider-specific limits,
and support cases. Initial use remains owner-only until current provider rules
confirm that the deployment and broader user flow are eligible.

## Evaluation

Accept this proposal only after the owner can connect and revoke the plan
without exposing credentials, an eligible model meets the existing import
quality checks, and a failed user-funded attempt offers an explicit retry choice
without spending application credit. Broader rollout needs a separate review
of eligibility, consent, deletion, and support behavior for other accounts.

## Migration note

This record extracts the payer choice and no-silent-fallback policy from
proposed ADR 027. It preserves the 8 October 2026 date, Proposed status,
owner-only boundary, and adoption gate. ADR 027 retains the credential,
provider-adapter, storage, and workflow design.

## Related records

- Project: [Recipe Site](https://robbiepalmer.me/projects/recipe-site.md)
- Informed by ADR: [ADR 002: OpenRouter](https://robbiepalmer.me/projects/recipe-site/adrs/002-openrouter.md)
- Informed by ADR: [ADR 012: Cloudflare Workflows for Recipe Ingestion](https://robbiepalmer.me/projects/recipe-site/adrs/012-cloudflare-workflows-recipe-ingestion.md)
- Implemented by ADR: [ADR 027: Optional ChatGPT Plan Usage for Recipe Imports](https://robbiepalmer.me/projects/recipe-site/adrs/027-optional-chatgpt-plan-usage-for-recipe-imports.md)

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