Heads up: no human has reviewed this code. All of it was written by an AI model (an LLM). A person has tested how it works by using it, but has not read the code, and there are no plans to review it soon. Keep that in mind before you install it, especially since it asks for access to your tabs, history and bookmarks.

A command bar and sidebar for Chrome and other Chromium browsers (Helium, Edge, Brave). It borrows the parts of Arc that were worth keeping: one search box for everything, a sidebar that stays out of the way, and old tabs that clean themselves up.

Chrome extension, no build step, no dependencies.

Highlights · What it does · Install · Set up Helium · Files · Test · Contributing · Things to know

• Command bar: Cmd+T searches open tabs, bookmarks, history and the web from one box. Cmd+1 to Cmd+9 opens a favorite, Cmd+Shift+C copies the page address.
• Sidebar: your tabs in a vertical list. Cmd+Shift+S, or rest your mouse on the left edge.
• Tab switcher: Cmd+Shift+K shows your recent tabs as previews. Press again to step through, let go to switch.
• Pinned: tabs you keep, in folders, at the top of the sidebar. They sync as bookmarks.
• Picture-in-picture: Cmd+Shift+P pops the page's video into a floating window that stays on top.
• Auto-archive: tabs you haven't touched in 12 hours close themselves and stay searchable.

Cmd+T, or click the Compass icon in the toolbar. A search box that pops up over the page. Cmd+T closes the blank new tab and opens the bar over the page you were on instead, so you may see a brief flash. Type anything and it finds open tabs, bookmarks, history and archived tabs in one list. Type a web address and it opens it. Type anything else and it searches the web.

• Press Enter on an empty bar to jump back to the last tab you were on.
• Type a site name like yt or reddit, press Tab, and search that site directly. Google, Gmail, Amazon, Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube, GitHub, X, Wikipedia, Maps, Perplexity, ChatGPT and Claude are built in.
• Your favorites sit at the top. Cmd+1 to Cmd+9 opens them.

Cmd+Shift+S, or rest your mouse on the left edge of the window. A vertical list of your open tabs, floating over the page. Click a tab to switch to it. Drag to reorder. Middle-click to close.

• An address field at the top shows the current site. Click it to edit, Enter to navigate.
• A pin button keeps the sidebar open as a docked side panel. Click it again to close.
• Arrow keys move through tabs, Enter opens one, Escape closes the sidebar.

Cmd+Shift+K. The tabs in this window as a grid, most recent first, each with a small picture of the page. It starts on the tab you were on before, so one press and release jumps back. Hold Cmd and press Shift+K again to step through them, then let go to switch. Or use the arrow keys and Enter, or click a tab. Escape closes it.

• A tab you haven't looked at since the browser started shows its icon on grey instead of a picture. The picture appears once you visit it.
• Pictures are kept in memory only and are gone when the browser closes.
• If you installed Compass before this feature existed, Cmd+Shift+K may still be set to open the command bar. Move it at chrome://extensions/shortcuts.

Your top sites, shown as icons in both the bar and the sidebar. Press + to add the current page, × (or the Delete key on a focused icon) to remove one. They are stored as a "Favorites" bookmark folder, so they sync and you can edit them in the bookmark manager.

Tabs you want to keep, at the top of the sidebar. Click the pin on a tab to pin it, or drag it up into Pinned. Click a pinned tab to open it, and click its pin again to unpin. Pinned tabs are stored as a "Pinned" bookmark folder, so they sync.

• New Folder adds a folder. Double-click or right-click a folder to rename it.
• Drag to reorder, or drop onto a folder to put it inside.
• × on a folder deletes it and everything in it.

Cmd+Shift+C copies the current page address. No popup, no confirmation.

Cmd+Shift+P pops the video on the page out into a small floating window that stays on top. Press it again on the same page to put it back. If there are several videos, it picks the biggest one that is playing, or else the biggest. On Windows and Linux the default Ctrl+Shift+P may clash with the browser's print shortcut; change it at chrome://extensions/shortcuts if it doesn't fire. Videos embedded from another site (like a YouTube video inside a blog post) aren't picked up yet.

Every 30 minutes, tabs you have not touched in 12 hours close on their own. They are saved first, so the command bar can still find them. Pinned items, favorites, the active tab and anything playing audio are left alone.

Compass is not on the Chrome Web Store. You load it straight from this repository, which works in Helium, Chrome, Edge and Brave.

Get the code

Either clone it:

git clone https://github.com/justin22/compass.git

Or on the GitHub page click Code, then Download ZIP, and unzip it somewhere you will keep it. The browser loads the extension from this folder every time it starts, so don't delete or move it afterwards.

Load it in the browser

1. Open chrome://extensions (in Edge, edge://extensions).
2. Turn on Developer mode (top right).
3. Click Load unpacked and pick the folder you just cloned or unzipped.
4. Press Cmd+Shift+S on any web page. The sidebar should slide in.

On Windows and Linux the shortcuts use Ctrl+Shift instead of Cmd+Shift. You can change them at chrome://extensions/shortcuts.

Update

Run git pull in the folder (or download the ZIP again and replace the folder's contents), then open chrome://extensions and click the reload icon on the Compass card. Pages that were already open need a refresh before the edge hover works on them again.

Compass replaces the browser's own tabs and toolbar, so it looks best when Helium gets out of the way. Open Helium's settings (Cmd+,), find Layout, and set:

• Vertical layout
• Show vertical tabs on right side: on. Compass's sidebar lives on the left edge, so Helium's tabs move to the right and the two don't overlap.
• Frameless mode: on. Hides Helium's toolbar until you hover the window edge, so the page fills the window and Compass is all you see.

Leave the rest off.

node archive.test.mjs

Prints archive ok if the archive rules still hold.

Issues and pull requests are welcome. Read CONTRIBUTING.md before starting. Pull requests with a user-visible change need a short video showing its impact.

• The overlay cannot draw on browser pages like chrome://settings or the Web Store. The bar falls back to the toolbar popup there, and the sidebar opens as the native side panel. The browser decides which side that panel is on. In Chrome you can move it to the left at chrome://settings/appearance (Side panel position).
• The 12 hour archive limit and the 150ms edge hover delay are fixed in code. Change them in archive.js and content.js if they feel wrong.
• To add a search site, add a line to the ENGINES list in bar.js.