Modifiers
The options attached to a menu item — size, temperature, an ingredient added or removed — each governed by its own rule about whether it's required and how many choices it allows.
A modifier group carries real rules: single-select (choose exactly one, the way a size usually works) or multi-select (choose several, the way toppings usually work), and required or optional. Pricing adds a second layer worth being precise about — an included modifier changes nothing about the price, an extra-cost modifier adds to it, and a same-price substitution swaps one included option for another — three rules that look identical from a customer's side of the conversation.
Nearly every real order touches a modifier of some kind, which is exactly why getting one wrong is so costly relative to how small it looks: one dropped “no cilantro” means a returned plate and a customer with real reason to doubt whether anything else they said was captured. A restaurant with thirty dishes can carry several hundred real modifier combinations once every size and add-on is counted.
The most common mistake is assuming every modifier behaves the same way once chosen, when included, extra-cost, and same-price-substitution are three different pricing rules wearing the same conversational shape. Modifier groups can also nest — a size choice can change which toppings are even offered — which is meaningfully harder to track than a flat list of independent add-ons.
Dohos treats a modifier as one of a small number of distinct, defined kinds of change to an item rather than free text parsed after the fact, with the full configuration engine covered on Menu.
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