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assist

assist extension and netcap

See Browser extension for installing and using the assist extension.

assist extension

Section titled “assist extension”
  • assist extension prints the folder to load the extension from unpacked: in Chrome with Load unpacked on chrome://extensions, or in Firefox with Load Temporary Add-on on about:debugging, picking its manifest.json. On WSL it copies the extension to C:\tools\extension and prints that path.
  • assist extension --url prints the download link of the latest signed Firefox build.
  • assist extension --sign signs the extension with your Mozilla add-ons API key, in WEB_EXT_API_KEY and WEB_EXT_API_SECRET, and prints the .xpi to install.

assist browser

Section titled “assist browser”

With the assist web server running and the extension installed, assist browser reads the tab you have open in the browser, on GitHub, Azure DevOps or a local docs preview.

  • assist browser status prints the extension’s version and whether a newer signed build exists, the tab’s URL and whether the extension is active on that tab. If it is not, reload the tab.
  • assist browser snapshot saves the tab’s page HTML to a file under ~/.assist/browser/ and prints its path.
  • assist browser inspect <selector> lists the elements matching a CSS selector, each with its size, text and the chain of elements it sits inside. assist browser inspect --text <text> lists the elements showing that text instead.
  • assist browser run --file <script> shows a JavaScript file in an approval panel on the tab and, once you click Run, prints what it returns, or its error. The script is the body of an async function, so return the value to print. It needs Firefox 153 or later; the first time, click Allow scripts on the extension’s options page.
  • assist browser console prints the tab’s console warnings and errors, uncaught errors and unhandled rejections, oldest first. Turn on Record console warnings and errors on the extension’s options page first. --all prints every tab’s, --since <duration> (such as 10m) and --grep <text> filter them, and --limit <n> prints at most the newest n, 200 by default.

Every assist browser command takes:

  • --url <text> to read the most recently used tab whose URL contains text instead of the tab in front.
  • --server <url> to name the web server the extension connects to, when it isn’t http://localhost:3100.

assist netcap

Section titled “assist netcap”

netcap records the fetch and XHR requests a browser page makes, with their responses, to a JSONL file. It pairs with its own browser extension.

  • assist netcap starts the recorder and prints the extension’s folder. Load it unpacked as above; Firefox needs version 128 or later. Browse, and matching requests are added to ~/.assist/netcap/capture.jsonl. Press Ctrl+C to stop.
    • -f <text> records only requests whose URL contains text.
    • -o <dir> writes the file to another folder, and -p <port> listens on a port other than 8723.
    • Run it again after changing -f or -p, and reload the extension.
  • assist netcap extract-linkedin-posts [file] reads the LinkedIn posts out of a capture, with each one’s text, author, mentions, links and permalink, and writes them to posts.json beside it.