No Fluff Reader

A minimal, privacy-minded Chrome extension + landing site and small API to read articles without paywalls or clutter. This repository contains three main packages: the browser extension (extension/), a marketing landing/ site, and a small api-server/ used for optional backend features.

Project Structure

• extension/ — Chrome Extension (Manifest V3) source, built with Vite and packaged into no-fluff-reader.zip.
• landing/ — React + Vite landing site that hosts marketing pages and the extension download link.
• api-server/ — Express + TypeScript API server (optional) for any server-side features.
• lib/ — shared libraries and generated API client code used by other packages.

Features

• Chrome extension (MV3): popup, background service worker, and content script.
• Packaged .zip for Web Store submission (built from extension/dist).
• Landing site with install CTA, theme toggle (light/dark), and extension download fallback.
• Local dev scripts and a vercel-build script to support CI builds.

Prerequisites

• Node >= 18
• pnpm (recommended) — install via npm i -g pnpm

Quick start (local)

1. Install dependencies at repository root:

pnpm install

2. Run the landing app locally (dev):

PORT=5173 BASE_PATH=/ pnpm --dir landing dev

3. Run the API server locally (dev):

PORT=3000 pnpm --dir api-server dev

4. Build and load the extension for development:

pnpm --dir extension build
pnpm --dir extension zip
# Load the unpacked extension from extension/dist in chrome://extensions

Build (production)

Build all packages:

pnpm run build

There is also a robust script for CI (used for Vercel):

pnpm run vercel-build

This runs the extension build + zip and copies the generated ZIP into landing/public (the copy step is guarded to avoid CI failures if the destination doesn't exist).

Environment variables

• PORT — port for the API server or landing (when running locally)
• DATABASE_URL — (optional) database connection for the API server
• VITE_CHROME_WEB_STORE_URL — optional Web Store URL used by the landing CTA
• VITE_EXTENSION_DOWNLOAD_URL — fallback download URL for the extension ZIP

Packaging & Publishing the Extension

1. Build the extension:

pnpm --dir extension build
pnpm --dir extension zip

2. The created file is extension/no-fluff-reader.zip. For convenience the repo's zip script copies this ZIP into landing/public when that folder exists.

3. Submit the ZIP to the Chrome Web Store via the Developer Dashboard.

Deployment recommendations

• Landing (static): Vercel or Netlify — set the build command to pnpm run vercel-build and publish landing/dist/public.
• API server: Render or Fly or Heroku — a simple Node service running the Express app on PORT.

Contributing

Please open issues or PRs against main. Keep changes small and focused. If you modify build scripts, ensure CI-friendly behavior (avoid cp failures; create directories before copying).

Troubleshooting

• If Vercel or other CI fails during the extension copy step, ensure the build command creates the landing/public directory before copying. The repository includes vercel-build which does this safely.

License

MIT