How to Automate Cropster

The roast log is the memory of a coffee business

Cropster is the production platform specialty coffee roasters run their week on. It connects to the machine itself, so every batch that comes off the drum leaves a curve behind: the charge temperature, the rate of rise, where first crack landed, how long development ran.

That log is not a nice-to-have. A roastery sells consistency. A wholesale customer who liked last month's bag expects this month's to taste the same, and the only way to make that true across two roasters, three staff and a coffee that changed crop year is to have last time's numbers on screen while you roast.

So Cropster ends up holding more than curves. It holds the green inventory, what each lot cost to land, the cupping scores, the blend recipes, the production schedule and the orders those roasts are for. For a lot of roasteries it is the only complete picture of the business that exists anywhere.

Roasting is the shortest part of the day

Nobody who started a roastery expected the roasting to be the small part.

A roast day might be four hours on the machine. The rest is somebody at a laptop. Wholesale orders arrive by email, by text and through a form, and each one gets typed up. The importer sends a spot list as a PDF and somebody reads it against what is running low. A container is somewhere between Antwerp and the warehouse, and finding out where means a booking reference and a shipping line's website. Cafe accounts that used to order every fortnight have gone quiet and nobody has noticed. Subscription boxes need a packing list. Courier tracking needs checking because a customer emailed to ask.

None of it is coffee. All of it is why the owner is still at the laptop at seven.

Cropster

Coffee found before it is needed Importer offers read as they are published and set against the lots your own projections say are about to run out.

Containers that report themselves Every green contract in transit checked on the shipping line's own tracking page, so a delay is a line in the morning list.

Accounts that went quiet Wholesale customers who have not ordered since spring, named with what they used to take and when they last took it.

Everything Cropster automates happens inside the roastery

Cropster does a lot without being asked, and it is worth setting up properly before paying for anything else.

Roasting Intelligence reads the machine live and can auto-mark development events on the curve, so colour change and first crack are logged without a keyboard, and a profile can be replayed on the next batch. Green inventory updates itself after every roast, so the stock figure moves without a stock take, and green coffee usage projections predict when a lot will run out from what is scheduled. Inventory level alerts fire when a lot drops below where you want it. Roast scheduling, batch calculation tools and repeat scheduling turn an order book into a roast plan. Cropster Cup runs cupping sessions on custom forms. Lot traceability follows a bag back to its contract, and production reporting summarises output over any period.

All of that is real, and most roasteries use about half of it.

The edge is the roastery door. Cropster knows what you roasted and what you have left. It does not know that a container has been sitting at the port for nine days, that an importer has dropped the price on a Colombian you buy every year, or that a cafe account has not placed an order since March.

A roastery that sees the container before the invoice does

Nine days at the port is a matter of public record, available to the roastery the whole nine days.

The shipping line's tracking page checked against every green contract in transit, so a delay shows up as a line in the morning summary rather than as a coffee you cannot roast next week. Importer spot lists read as they are published and matched against what your projections say you are about to run out of, so the offer that just landed and the gap in your inventory find each other.

Wholesale accounts that have gone quiet, surfaced by name, with when they last ordered and what they usually take. For a roastery that is the most valuable list in the building, and nobody ever has time to build it.

Courier tracking for the boxes that went out on Tuesday, with anything that stopped moving pushed to the top. What a comparable single origin is going for elsewhere this week. Whether the cafe you supply is still listing your coffee on their menu page.

Set the line at the customer. Reading, checking and listing can run on its own overnight. An email to a wholesale account gets written, then read by a person, then sent.

Growth in coffee is limited by admin, not by capacity

A roastery that doubles its output does not double its roasting hours. It doubles the tabs: more contracts in transit, more accounts to watch, more tracking numbers, more offers to read.

WebRun is an AI agent that works a real Chrome browser, signed in as you. It opens the shipping line, the importer's portal, the courier or the customer's own site, reads what is on the screen, and puts the answer where you will see it.

Because it drives the browser rather than an API, it reaches whatever you can reach, with no key to generate and no integration to build first. It runs on your schedule in your own private environment, you can watch a run and stop it, and anything going to a customer is drafted and waits.

The workflows below are already built, and each one names what it opens.