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Browser Extension

Coeus can accept browser captures over a local loopback bridge while the desktop app is running.

This is useful when:

  • a site renders correctly in your browser session but blocks separate fetches
  • you want to save the current article exactly as you see it
  • you only want to save a selected excerpt

What the prototype supports​

  • Save article: extract visible article text from the current tab and save it as a source note
  • Save selection: send just the selected text
  • Send page URL: send only the current page URL and let Coeus fetch it

The local bridge listens on http://127.0.0.1:3778.

How it works​

  1. The browser extension reads the current page in the browser
  2. It sends JSON to POST /capture
  3. If Coeus is not running, the extension opens coeus://capture?... to wake the desktop app
  4. It retries the local capture
  5. Coeus creates a source note and opens it

Request format​

{
  "kind": "browser_article",
  "url": "https://example.com/article",
  "title": "Example Article",
  "content": "Visible page text...",
  "selection": "Optional selected text",
  "byline": "Optional author",
  "siteName": "Example",
  "excerpt": "Optional summary",
  "tags": ["optional", "tags"],
  "open": true
}

content can be omitted for URL-only captures. In that case, Coeus falls back to its normal URL fetch path.

Health check​

The extension can verify the bridge with:

GET http://127.0.0.1:3778/health

Expected response:

{
  "ok": true,
  "host": "127.0.0.1",
  "port": 3778
}

Current limitation​

The deep link is only a wake-up path. Full article bodies still go over the local loopback bridge.

Desktop deep links depend on the installed Coeus app bundle. On macOS in particular, testing the scheme is much more reliable against the installed app than against a dev binary.