i built a chrome extension in 10 minutes. here's why.
i wrote a quick shopping list gpt assistant to speed up my workflow.
every saturday. same ritual.
i make my shopping list on walmart.com.
then, before heading to the gym, i rewrite everything manually. item by item — just so i can have it in markdown for quick reference.
it's simple. it works. so i keep doing it.
until this week, when i finally stopped and asked:
"why am i still doing this by hand?"
how i built it
chatgpt gave me all the code. every file. even instructions for unpacking it in chrome.
one prompt. full execution.
spent three minutes building this:
<role>you are a professional frontend developer specialized in writing chrome extensions</role><task>write a chrome extension that can extract the items from the walmart cart page and convert them into markdown</task><walmart_data>{html from walmart cart page} Refer to $SCREENSHOT_1 for the layout</walmart_data><design>build a chrome extension that extracts the items from my cart and converts them into a markdown format. include the item amount, item name, and item price. the extension will have three key features: extract list, organize list, and view list (with copy button). The extract list will use pure html parsing to extract the items from the page. The organize list will use an openai api completion with a prompt i built to organize the items. the api key should be stored in local storage (encrypted at rest by default in chrome), there will be an input and save button for the key. then under the key, the extract button. then under that, the text area for the markdown. under that, the organize list button. finally, a view button that will open a new html page with the markdown in a readable format. heading on the view page should say StealMart by Kevin, with the copy button in the top right. The design system can be seen in $SCREENSHOT_2.</design><output_requirements>your output should include two deliverables: 1. every file for the chrome extension to create an unpacked extension. 2. instructions for how to set up the extension and test it.</output_requirements>
dropped it into t3.chat.
it worked first try.
well — mostly. the layout was a bit rough. no icon.
so i cleaned it up.
asked chatgpt for a logo. used imagemagick to generate every size i needed:
magick icon.png -resize 16x16 icon_16.png
magick icon.png -resize 32x32 icon_32.png
magick icon.png -resize 128x128 icon_128.png
plugged them into the manifest. polished the layout and css.
and that was it. done.
what it actually does
this was a one-job tool:
- grabs all items in my Walmart cart
- extracts name, quantity, price
- converts to markdown
- organizes the list by store section using GPT
- renders a clean way to view and copy
demo:
why it matters
most people would have never built this.
not because it's hard.
because they've normalized drag.
i used to write my list by hand every weekend.
never questioned it.
until i did.
then solved it — in 10 minutes.
what can you solve?
— kevin
i don't build faster because i'm smarter.
i build faster because i have Kernix.