Actively Maintained

Redactly

React TypeScript Tailwind CSS Vite Web Extensions API Zod

Overview

I kept pasting things into AI chatbots without thinking too hard about it, API keys, emails, internal names. So I built a browser extension that automatically redacts sensitive patterns before they ever leave your machine, and restores the originals when you copy the AI's response back. You define your own rules with exact matching or regex, control which AI services it runs on, and can export/import configs to share with teammates.

What I built

Priority-based redaction engine, exact matches before regex, processed in order
Auto-restoration when copying AI responses back
Supports ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and DeepSeek
Per-site enable/disable toggles for granular control
Import/export rule sets for sharing configs across machines
Real-time rule tester to preview redactions before saving
Chrome (Manifest V3) and Firefox (Manifest V2) support

What I learned

Browser extension architecture and the key differences between MV2 and MV3
Content script injection, message passing, and background service workers
Building a regex processing pipeline with caching for performance
Handling different DOM structures across AI service websites without breaking

Architecture

flowchart LR
    User([" User"])

    subgraph Browser["Browser"]
        Input["AI Chat Input"]

        subgraph Ext["Redactly Extension"]
            CS["Content Script"]
            Engine["Redaction Engine
(exact + regex rules)"]
            BG["Background
Service Worker"]
            Storage["Rule Storage"]
            Popup["Popup UI"]
        end

        Output["AI Response
(redacted)"]
        Restored["Copied Text
(originals restored)"]
    end

    AI[" AI Service
(ChatGPT / Claude / Gemini)"]

    User -->|"types"| Input
    Input --> CS
    CS --> Engine
    Engine -->|"reads rules"| Storage
    Engine -->|"redacted text"| Output
    Output -->|"sent to"| AI
    AI -->|"response"| Output
    Output -->|"user copies"| Engine
    Engine -->|"restores originals"| Restored
    Popup -->|"manage rules"| BG
    BG --> Storage