The Inventory System is a home inventory ledger built around a simple idea: the state of a physical object should be explainable. Instead of storing only the latest answer, it records the actions that produced it—onboarding, observation, movement, opening, quantity changes, quality checks, finishing, discarding, and relabeling. The first workflow is kitchen-focused, but assets live in explicit workspaces so the same foundation can support other physical domains.

Stable QR labels connect the database to the object in your hand. A label can be generated during onboarding, prepared in advance as an unassigned sticker, or scanned later to reach an item's current state and quick actions. The label's identity remains stable while the asset's location, condition, quantity, and lifecycle evolve around it.

The system avoids compressing every question into one ambiguous status. Lifecycle records whether an item is active, finished, or discarded. Presence records whether it is present, unobserved, likely missing, or known to be absent. Quality records freshness or usefulness, while projection confidence expresses how much the system trusts its current understanding. Those axes feed queues with concrete reasons, turning the ledger into a practical list of what needs attention.

Photo-assisted onboarding is optional and review-first. An uploaded food image can prepare a suggested draft, but the user confirms the details before creating the item. The original input is treated as transient private material; only bounded thumbnail and medium derivatives are retained for public-facing views. Manual onboarding remains fully functional when image analysis is unavailable.