ChatVeil

ChatVeil is a local-only privacy tool for chatbot sidebars. It masks non-current conversation titles by default, keeps the current conversation visible, reveals masked titles while hovered or keyboard-focused, and lets users pin individual titles visible from chat menus or with a triple-click.

The project ships the same TypeScript masking core in two forms:

• A Chrome Manifest V3 extension built with WXT.
• A Tampermonkey userscript built with Vite.

What It Does

• Masks chat history titles without rewriting the original page text.
• Reveals a title temporarily on hover or focus with a soft dissolve transition.
• Keeps the active conversation title readable.
• Adds a lightweight menu action to keep individual titles unmasked.
• Stores per-title unlocks as hashed keys instead of raw titles.
• Supports a default dynamic dissolve mask, plus skeleton, character, and blur modes.
• Lets users enable unknown chatbot sites one origin at a time from the popup.

Supported Sites

First-class adapters are included for:

• ChatGPT: chatgpt.com
• Claude: claude.ai
• Qwen: qwen.ai and chat.qwen.ai
• DeepSeek: chat.deepseek.com
• MiniMax/Hailuo: minimax.io, agent.minimax.com, and agent.minimaxi.com

The generic adapter also supports known chatbot hosts such as Kimi, Doubao, Tencent Yuanbao, Tongyi, ERNIE/Yiyan, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity, Poe, Mistral, and Grok. Other chatbot sites can be enabled manually from the extension popup with a single-origin permission request.

Privacy Model

ChatVeil is designed to stay on the page and in the browser:

• No network calls.
• No telemetry.
• No remote code.
• No title uploads.
• No raw conversation-title storage.
• No destructive text replacement.

The content script adds namespaced data-chatveil-* attributes plus CSS/SVG overlays to mask titles visually. The default dissolve style renders an ephemeral SVG particle layer over the existing title; it does not copy raw titles into persistent storage, data-* attributes, canvas buffers, or generated assets. Settings, custom hosts, temporary show-all state, and hashed unlock keys are stored through browser storage or userscript storage.

Dynamic Dissolve Mask

The default Dissolve style masks non-current titles as a living particle cloud. Particles lightly drift while idle, scatter before a hovered or focused title becomes readable, and gather back when the title is masked again.

The dissolve implementation is tuned for long sidebars:

• One shared animation scheduler drives all dissolve titles instead of one loop per title.
• Offscreen particle layers pause and release their SVG circle nodes.
• Idle masked titles use a lighter frame cadence.
• Hover, focus, reveal, and remask transitions keep full motion priority.
• prefers-reduced-motion: reduce falls back to a simplified low-motion state.

Project Layout

• src/core/: shared adapter, settings, hashing, and masking engine logic.
• entrypoints/: WXT extension entry points for content script, background script, and popup UI.
• src/extension/: Chrome storage bridge.
• src/userscript/: Tampermonkey entry point and in-page controls.
• tests/: Vitest coverage for hashing, settings, adapters, and engine behavior.
• scripts/: icon generation and Playwright smoke checks.
• PRIVACY.md, PERMISSIONS.md, STORE_LISTING.md: Chrome Web Store support material.
• PLAN.md, PRD_LOOP.md, COMPLETION_AUDIT.md: implementation plan, loop tracking, and completion evidence.

Quick Start

npm install
npm run generate:icons
npm run lint
npm run test
npm run build

Useful development commands:

npm run dev
npm run typecheck
npm run test:smoke
npm run build:extension
npm run build:userscript

Build Artifacts

• Extension zip: .output/*-chrome.zip
• Unpacked extension: .output/chrome-mv3/
• Userscript: dist/userscript/chatveil.user.js

Build artifacts are generated locally and ignored by git.

Manual Acceptance

1. Run npm run build:extension.
2. Open chrome://extensions, enable Developer Mode, and load .output/chrome-mv3 as an unpacked extension.
3. Visit ChatGPT, Claude, and Qwen.
4. Confirm the current conversation title remains visible while non-current titles are masked.
5. Hover or focus a masked title and confirm particles scatter before the title becomes readable.
6. Triple-click a masked title and confirm it stays visible after refresh.
7. Open the popup, disable and re-enable the current site, use Show All 10m, reset unlocks, and switch mask styles.
8. For a custom chatbot site, enable it from the popup and confirm the optional single-origin permission request appears.
9. Run npm run build:userscript, install dist/userscript/chatveil.user.js in Tampermonkey, and repeat the known-site checks.

License

MIT