Scanner extension

Brico Scanner is a Chrome extension. It watches a web application while it runs, then works out its routes, forms, API calls and the features on the page. It doesn’t scrape HTML or copy source code. It reconstructs how a feature behaves from what the page does, so a brick can be built against the contract the app really uses instead of an invented one.

Detection runs entirely in your browser. Building a brick from a detected feature is the Worker’s job.

Install the developer preview

The Chrome Web Store listing is in review. Until it clears, load the extension unpacked. It needs Chrome 116 or later.

git clone https://github.com/ScienceWerx-Inc/bricowerx.git
cd bricowerx/extension
npm install
npm run build              # writes dist/

1. Open chrome://extensions and turn on Developer mode.
2. Click Load unpacked and choose extension/dist.
3. Pin Brico Scanner to the toolbar.

Scan a page

1. Open the app you want to learn from

   Sign in and go to the screen with the feature you are interested in.

2. Click the toolbar icon, then Scan this page

   The side panel opens. Clicking the icon grants access to this tab only, for one scan. Always allow on <site> turns that into standing access for the site, so you don’t have to click again.

3. Use the page

   Click around, submit a form, open a dialog. The scanner links what you do to the DOM changes and network calls each action causes.

4. Read the results

   The panel shows what it found, in sections:

A feature is only reported when several signals agree, such as the DOM, the interactions, the network and its wording. One signal on its own is never enough. The vocabulary covers several languages, so non-English apps are recognised too.

Turn a feature into a brick

1. Tick the features you want under Reusable features.
2. Choose Next.js or NestJS under Build for.
3. Click Build N features in my Vault.

The selection goes to the Worker on your machine, which generates each brick, typechecks it against the endpoints the scanner observed, and publishes it to your Vault. The panel follows each job until it finishes. If the Worker isn’t running, the panel tells you and shows the command that starts it. See Worker.

Privacy

The scanner only reads pages you choose to scan. Before anything leaves the page, it discards everything that could be a value instead of a shape:

• Request and response bodies are reduced to type skeletons. The values are thrown away, not masked.
• Credential headers are stripped, including vendor-specific ones. Cookies and Authorization headers are never collected.
• URLs lose credentials, query values and fragments. Only query parameter names are kept.

There is no access to every site, no browsing history, no analytics and no trackers. The extension never asks for the debugger permission.