chatbrief

ChatBrief

ChatBrief is a Manifest V3 Chrome extension for quickly summarising selected webpage text.

Core promise: Select any text. Get the short version.

How it works

1. Highlight text on a webpage.
2. Right-click the selection.
3. Choose Quick Summary.
4. Read the summary in a lightweight modal.
5. Copy the summary if needed.

ChatBrief first tries Chrome’s built-in Summarizer API when it is available on the user’s device. If it is unavailable, ChatBrief uses a local extractive summariser fallback.

Privacy

Selected text is processed locally in the browser. ChatBrief does not store selected text, transmit selected text, collect analytics, track users, or use a backend.

Permissions

ChatBrief uses only these permissions:

• contextMenus: adds the Quick Summary item to Chrome’s right-click menu.
• activeTab: allows ChatBrief to work with the active tab after the user explicitly clicks the context menu item.
• scripting: injects the lightweight content script/modal into the active tab after user action.

ChatBrief does not request broad host permissions, browsing history, storage, tabs, analytics, or tracking permissions.

Development

Install dependencies:

npm install

Run a type check:

npm run check

Build the extension:

npm run build

The built extension is written to dist/.

Local Chrome Testing

1. Run npm run build.
2. Open Chrome and go to chrome://extensions.
3. Enable Developer mode.
4. Click Load unpacked.
5. Select the dist/ folder.
6. Open a normal webpage.
7. Highlight a paragraph or longer block of text.
8. Right-click and choose Quick Summary.
9. Confirm the modal appears and the Copy summary button works.

Chrome does not allow extensions to run on restricted pages, including chrome:// pages and the Chrome Web Store.

Release Package

Build the release package:

npm run build
cd dist
zip -r ../chatbrief-1.0.0.zip .

Upload chatbrief-1.0.0.zip to the Chrome Web Store developer dashboard.

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