Tabitha Workspaces

Tabitha Workspaces is a private, local-first browser workspace and session manager for Chromium and Firefox. It turns open tabs, research links, and connected notes into durable workspaces without requiring an account or transmitting browsing data.

This project is a maintained, independent successor inspired by the discontinued robkam/Tabitha. See NOTICE.md for attribution.

What it does

• Organizes separate workspaces with folders and ordered collections.
• Captures the current browser window as a restorable session.
• Restores sessions into a new or existing window and optionally skips duplicate URLs.
• Shows open tabs across browser windows and refreshes the view automatically.
• Saves individual links with descriptions and tags.
• Stores notes with [[internal links]] and backlink counts.
• Searches workspace names, folders, sessions, saved tabs, URLs, notes, and tags.
• Soft-deletes workspaces, folders, sessions, links, and notes into a recycle bin.
• Reorders workspaces and sessions with drag and drop.
• Creates optional replacement-style recovery snapshots on a user-selected interval.
• Imports and exports a complete, versioned JSON backup.
• Provides system, light, and dark themes, compact density, and a custom accent color.
• Adds toolbar actions, page context menus, and keyboard shortcuts.

Three-minute start

1. Download the package for your browser from the latest GitHub release.
2. Follow INSTALLATION.md to load the package locally.
3. Select Save window from the toolbar popup.
4. Open the workspace dashboard to name, tag, restore, or reorganize the saved session.
5. Export a JSON backup from Settings whenever you want a portable copy.

Privacy

Tabitha Workspaces has no server, account, analytics, advertising, telemetry, or remote code. Library data stays in browser extension storage until the user explicitly exports a backup. The extension requests only the following permissions:

Permission	Why it is needed
storage	Save the local workspace library and preferences.
tabs	Read tab titles and URLs when the user captures or monitors browser windows.
contextMenus	Provide Save page, Save window, and Open Tabitha actions.
unlimitedStorage	Prevent larger session and note libraries from being evicted by normal quotas.
alarms	Schedule optional local recovery snapshots.

No host permissions are requested. Read PRIVACY.md for the complete policy.

Browser support

• Chrome and Chromium-derived desktop browsers using Manifest V3.
• Firefox desktop 142 or later using Manifest V3 background scripts and the current built-in no-data consent declaration.

Both packages are built from the same TypeScript source. Browser-specific manifests are generated and verified independently. Mobile browsers and Safari have not been tested and are not claimed as supported.

Building from source

Requirements: Node.js 20.19 or later and npm.

npm ci
npm run validate

Development commands:

npm run dev
npm run dev:firefox

Production output:

• .output/chrome-mv3/
• .output/firefox-mv3/
• .output/tabitha-workspaces-1.0.0-chrome.zip
• .output/tabitha-workspaces-1.0.0-firefox.zip

Architecture

The extension uses WXT, TypeScript, and Preact. Browser events live in a background entrypoint; the dashboard and popup share a versioned library model. Pure domain functions handle capture, restore planning, search, tags, note links, backups, ordering, and recycle-bin behavior. Details and data boundaries are documented in docs/ARCHITECTURE.md.

Limitations

• Google Drive synchronization from the original proposal is intentionally not included. It would require OAuth credentials, external data transmission, consent UX, remote failure handling, and conflict resolution. JSON backup is the supported portability mechanism in version 1.
• Browser-internal pages such as chrome://settings and about:config cannot be restored by an extension and are omitted during capture.
• Extension-store publication is not the same as a GitHub release. Chrome Web Store and Mozilla Add-ons submissions require separate developer accounts and review.
• Recovery snapshots are disabled by default and replace the prior automatic snapshot rather than building an unbounded history.

Contributing and support

Read CONTRIBUTING.md before proposing a change. Use GitHub Issues for verified bugs and focused feature requests, SUPPORT.md for usage help, and SECURITY.md for vulnerability reporting.

License

Tabitha Workspaces is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3. See LICENSE.

More open-source projects

This project is part of the Logan Pendragon Forge open-source collection. Browse the catalog for other released tools, source repositories, live demos, and downloads.