Crxjs

CRXJS is a Vite plugin that gives you actual hot module replacement for Chrome extensions, including content scripts, which normally require full reloads. It reads your manifest and auto-generates the build, handles content script injection with special import suffixes like `?script`, and lets you use `defineManifest` for type-safe, dynamic manifest generation. Works with React, Vue, Svelte, or vanilla JS. The HMR for content scripts is the real draw here since most Chrome extension tooling forces you into a refresh loop. Currently maintained by the community (v2.4.0 stable), supports Vite 3 through 8-beta, and has about 4k stars on GitHub. Tailwind CSS updates in content scripts can be flaky and sometimes need a dev server restart.

skills.sh installs: 5.1K
GitHub stars: 242
last updated: Aug 21, 2026

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Install

$ npx -y skills add samber/cc-skills --skill crxjs --agent claude-code

Installs into .claude/skills of the current project.

Files

CRXJS

CRXJS is a Chrome extension development tool that provides true HMR for popup, options, content scripts, and side panels. It reads your manifest to auto-generate the extension output, handles content script injection, and manages the service worker build. Under the hood it is a Vite plugin (@crxjs/vite-plugin).

Current status

Package: @crxjs/vite-plugin (v2.x stable, latest v2.4.0 as of March 2026)
Scaffolding: npm create crxjs@latest (always use @latest)
Maintained by: @Toumash and @FliPPeDround (since mid-2025)
GitHub: github.com/crxjs/chrome-extension-tools (~4k stars)
Vite compatibility: v3 through v8-beta

Quick start

# Scaffold new project (picks framework interactively)
npm create crxjs@latest

# Or add to existing Vite project
npm install @crxjs/vite-plugin -D

Vite config by framework

CRXJS is added as a Vite plugin. The setup varies slightly per framework.

React

// vite.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from "vite";
import react from "@vitejs/plugin-react";
import { crx } from "@crxjs/vite-plugin";
import manifest from "./manifest.json";

SKILL.md on GitHub