Chrome side panel · runs on your machine · early testers wanted
Sidebar Framework is a side panel that holds notes you own, keeps a live reading of every open tab, and attaches help to the page you are on. No page content, note, or address leaves your computer.
A small group, Chrome only. You get the build and a direct line to the person who made the panel.
Home: a command bar, the page you are on, every open tab grouped by what kind of page each one is, and today's note. The page on the left is where the work is; the panel is the desk beside the work.
The idea
The browser is where most work happens, so the browser should behave like an operating system, and the side panel should be the desk beside the screen.
A notes vault in the browser, in the style of Obsidian. The active tab is one possible source of a clip, never the centre. Nothing opens in another app.
Every tab read as the tab loads, classified, summarized on the device, grouped and previewed. The answer to forty tabs across three windows.
Labels and notes on pages, clips that keep summary and commentary apart, and in time a guess at why a tab is open. Help attaches here.
What is in the panel today
Markdown with autosave, wikilinks with backlinks, tags, a daily note, and slash commands. Export is one markdown file per note. With a small helper, the vault lives in a folder on disk that Obsidian opens with no plugin.
[[wikilinks]] with autocomplete and backlinks/ts stamps the time during a meetingAs each tab loads, the panel records what kind of page the tab holds: article, docs, form, product, video, mail, sign-in, app. Forms and sign-ins sort first because those hold work in progress. Duplicates close in one click. Your own labels group tabs across windows and survive a relaunch.
Summaries and /ask run on Chrome's built-in on-device model. Page text and note text never leave the browser process. The guide states the limits plainly: a small model, short answers, English, Chrome 138 or newer.
/ask from the editor or the command barHow the test works
Email and your tab count. The first group is small and Chrome only, so the person who made the panel can answer every message.
You get a zip and a two-minute walkthrough: Developer mode, Load unpacked, pin the icon. An unlisted Web Store listing follows once the first group has shaken the build out.
Open the panel with Alt+S for a week of real work. Send what broke, what you reached for that was missing, and which widget you stopped noticing.
| storage | Notes, bookmarks, settings, page records |
| tabs | Titles and addresses of open tabs for the command bar |
| all URLs | The badge, extraction, and page snapshots on every page. No network requests are made. |
| nativeMessaging | The optional helper that keeps the vault as files on disk |
Questions testers ask
Chrome 114 or newer for the side panel, Chrome 138 or newer for on-device summaries and /ask. Edge should work and is untested. Safari runs the panel as a tab through a Mac app build and is a later test group. Firefox needs manifest changes.
No. No page content, note, or address is sent anywhere. Summaries use Chrome's built-in model inside the browser process. The optional helper writes files to a folder you choose and listens on nothing.
For the round badge, article extraction, and the page snapshot that feeds the tab index. The README has a table with the reason for every permission. Background reading can be switched off in Settings.
Version 1.3, built as a study and used daily by the author. Expect rough edges in the on-disk vault and the Safari build. Next on the list: model-based classification for uncertain pages, a behavioural layer for intent, and help attached to government pages.
Open chrome://extensions, turn on Developer mode, choose Load unpacked, pick the folder from the zip, and pin the icon. The walkthrough takes two minutes and comes with the build.
Early access · Chrome · MIT licence