aether-devtools reference

What it is

An extension that lives inside browser DevTools. The audience: web RE, bug bounty hunters, pentesters, anti-bot researchers — anyone who already has DevTools open all day and wants uncensored AI inline with the page they're inspecting.

Three surfaces inside one extension: a DevTools panel (5 modes), a right-click context menu on selected text, and a toolbar popup for balance + key management.

Install

While the extension is in early access, you load it unpacked from the source. Chrome Web Store / Firefox AMO listings will follow.

Chrome / Edge / Brave

Generate an API key at https://trynoguard.com/account.
Clone or download the aether-devtools repo.
Open chrome://extensions/. Toggle Developer mode in the top-right.
Click Load unpacked and select the aether-devtools/ directory.
Pin the Aether extension to your toolbar.
Click the toolbar icon, paste your ak_live_ key, hit Save.
Open DevTools (Ctrl+Shift+I / ⌘⌥I) on any page. Click the Aether tab.

Firefox

Firefox supports MV3, but temporary add-ons unload when the browser closes. For a persistent install, sign with web-ext sign + your AMO credentials.

Generate an API key at https://trynoguard.com/account.
Open about:debugging#/runtime/this-firefox.
Click Load Temporary Add-on… and select aether-devtools/manifest.json.
Click the puzzle-piece icon, find Aether, paste your key.
Open DevTools. Click the Aether tab.

The 5 modes

Each mode hits a different specialized endpoint with a curated system prompt. The pill buttons at the top of the panel switch between them.

Mode	What it does	Endpoint
Chat	Direct uncensored chat, no refusal layer.	/api/v1/chat
Deobfuscate JS	Cleans Obfuscator.io / JScrambler / custom packers. Outputs readable JS + analysis of what the obfuscator was protecting.	/api/v1/deobfuscate_js
Explain code	Walks through any source / decompiled C / Hex-Rays output. Identifies CRC, hash, signature, anti-debug patterns.	/api/v1/explain_code
Explain disasm	Line-by-line walkthrough of x86 / x86_64 / ARM / ARM64 / MIPS disassembly. Set arch in the hint field.	/api/v1/explain_disasm
Identify pattern	Names the technique/family — packers, anti-cheat, crypto algorithms, malware signatures, anti-VM, anti-debug.	/api/v1/identify_pattern

Right-click context menu

Select any text on a webpage (Stack Overflow answer, blog post code block, GitHub snippet, network response in DevTools) and right-click. Three menu items are added:

Aether: Explain selected text — opens the panel in chat mode with the selection prefilled
Aether: Deobfuscate selected JS — opens the panel in deobfuscate mode with the selection prefilled
Aether: Identify pattern in selection — opens the panel in identify mode

Common workflows

Web RE / bug bounty

Open the target site, open DevTools, find a minified script in the Network panel.
Right-click the response → Copy → Copy response. Paste into the Aether panel in Deobfuscate JS mode.
Get cleaned JS + an explanation of what the script is doing — auth signing, fingerprinting, paywall enforcement, etc.

Anti-bot research

Capture a Cloudflare / Datadome / PerimeterX challenge bundle from the Network tab.
Paste into Identify pattern with hint anti-bot WASM or JScrambler v8.
Aether names the family and outlines the detection layers.

Quick "what does this do?"

Highlight any code or assembly snippet on a webpage. Right-click → Aether: Explain selected text. The panel opens with the selection prefilled and the answer streams in.

Permissions explained

The extension requests four permissions at install. Here's what each one is actually for — the principle of least privilege applies, and there's nothing surprising.

Permission	Why we need it
storage	Persist your API key + (optional) custom base URL via chrome.storage.sync. Synced across browsers when you sign into your Google profile.
contextMenus	Add the right-click menu items on selected text. Without this, the context menu integration doesn't work.
activeTab	Read selection text only when you invoke a context-menu action — i.e. on user gesture. Cannot read your tabs in the background.
host_permissions: <all_urls>	Required so the right-click menu appears on every site. The extension does NOT make outbound requests to those sites — it only talks to trynoguard.com.

Privacy

API key is stored in chrome.storage.sync, scoped to your browser profile and synced across signed-in browsers. Never sent anywhere except https://trynoguard.com.
The extension does NOT read page content automatically. It only reads what you explicitly send (selected text, pasted input, manually-copied responses).
No telemetry, no error reporting, no usage tracking.
Source is plain ES modules under aether-devtools/. No bundler, no minification — read it before installing.
Same backend privacy guarantees as the rest of Aether: no Conversation rows, no Message rows persist server-side. Only credit accounting.

Troubleshooting

Aether tab doesn't appear in DevTools

Reload the extension at chrome://extensions/ (the refresh icon on the card), then close DevTools entirely and reopen it. Chrome only registers DevTools panels on DevTools open.

Toolbar popup says 'Key invalid or missing' even though I just pasted it

Make sure you clicked Save after pasting. The popup also runs a live/api/v1/me check on save — if your key was just revoked or has a typo, you'll see this here. Generate a fresh key at https://trynoguard.com/account.

The right-click menu shows the items but clicking does nothing

The DevTools panel must be running for the prefill to land. Open DevTools first, click the Aether tab, then right-click your selection on the page.

Network panel responses are too big to paste

The Aether endpoints accept up to 40,000 characters per call. For larger responses, use the aether-code CLI: aether "deobfuscate the file at ./response.js". The agent reads the file directly so the size limit doesn't apply.

HTTP 402 — out of credits

Top up at https://trynoguard.com/pay. The popup shows your live balance — keep it pinned to the toolbar so you can see when you're running low.

Why does the extension request `<all_urls>` host permissions?

Manifest v3 requires host permissions for context menus to appear on a page. The extension does NOT use this permission to make outbound HTTP requests to those sites — only https://trynoguard.com is contacted, and only when you explicitly invoke a tool. Source is ~50KB of unminified ES modules; auditable in 10 minutes.

I can't load unpacked on stable Chrome — `--load-extension is not allowed`

That CLI flag is blocked on stable Chrome as a security policy, but Load unpacked from chrome://extensions/ still works. The blocked path is the command-line one. If you want CLI loading for automated testing, use Edge (also Chromium-based) or Chrome Canary.

Self-hosting / pointing at a non-trynoguard backend

Click the toolbar icon, then the gear icon to open the full options page. Set a custom Base URL there. Useful for self-hosted Aether or staging deployments.

`aether-devtools`