Take food orders over Instagram messages with an agent
Idea + starter prompt, not run by us yet
For: Restaurant owners who get lots of orders through Instagram DMs
A builder linked Instagram DMs via Meta's API to Claude Sonnet 4.6 with a knowledge base for seven sushi outlets: menu, ingredients, allergens, delivery zones, hours, prep times and promos. It chats, collects address and quantity, offers extras, shares a link to pay by bank, and passes confirmed orders to the kitchen and CRM. Staff handle calls, voice notes and photos. Stale menu or allergen data is the main risk.
Steps
- Build a clean knowledge base: menu, ingredients, allergens, zones, hours and promos.
- Write clear rules for when the agent must hand over to a person.
- Test on dummy chats first, especially allergen questions.
- Keep the menu and allergen data updated every time something changes.
- Use prompt caching to keep costs down if the knowledge base is large.
Starter prompt
You are the order assistant for [restaurant name]. Answer only from the facts in [knowledge file], which covers dishes, allergens, where you deliver, opening times and offers. Draft how you would handle these sample customer chats: [paste test chats]. For each, show your replies, the order summary you would create, and when you would hand over to staff. If an allergen question is not clearly answered by the data, hand over to a person. This is a test only. Do not send messages or payment links to real customers.
Original post: Reddit · found via agentusecases.ai. Written up in our own words. We haven't run it, so test it on made-up data first.