Badges and Building Your Reputation

As you cook, share, and contribute at The Potluck, you earn badges that show up on your chef profile.

How Badges Work

Badges are awarded automatically based on your activity — things like sharing cooks, earning fires, and having other pitmasters cook your recipes. There's nothing to apply for and nothing to buy: keep bringing good dishes to the table and your reputation builds itself.

Badges are recalculated regularly, so a new badge may take a little while to appear after you cross a threshold.

Earned, Never Self-Assigned

Your standing at The Potluck — badges and any earned trust — is awarded by CookStache and can be revoked if the Community Guidelines are broken. The verified Chef badge is separate: it's a staff-granted mark confirming a chef's identity, not an activity badge.

A Note on Fairness

Community stats like fires and ratings are computed by CookStache's systems, not self-reported, so the leaderboard can't be gamed by editing a profile. The best way to climb is the honest one: share cooks worth cooking.