xChat

A fast, full-screen, keyboard-first layer on top of X (Twitter) Direct Messages — inspired by Superhuman and the Inflow LinkedIn client.

• In-page Chrome extension — it never touches X's API or crypto. X does all the fetching, decryption, realtime, and sending.
• Full-screen reskin of X's DM interface — instant view switches, no entrance animations.
• Keyboard navigation — j/k to move between conversations, reply-on-r, Tab to cycle inbox filters, p to pin/unpin, u to mark unread.
• Message-request triage — q opens requests, j/k browses them, Enter accepts and drops you straight into the reply box, Esc backs out.
• Command palette (⌘K) and quick-switcher (⌘J).
• Quick search across your conversations.
• Discoverable shortcuts — small keycap hints on the buttons themselves (/, tab, Q, C, enter, esc), so you learn the keys as you click.
• Toolbar button that jumps straight to your DMs.
• Experimental: agent-scriptable via WebMCP — AI agents like Claude can list, read, search, and reply to your DMs through typed tools instead of screen-scraping (details below).
• Because it rides X's own client, every conversation works — including end-to-end-encrypted XChat threads.

Everything maps to real X DM functionality — nothing is faked. X DMs have no archive / star / snooze, so xChat doesn't pretend to.

Unofficial and not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by X Corp. "X" and "Twitter" are trademarks of their respective owners.

Install

→ Add xChat to Chrome — one click from the Chrome Web Store, then open https://x.com/messages (or x.com/i/chat) and xChat activates automatically. Works in any Chromium browser that can install from the store (Chrome, Arc, Brave, Edge, Vivaldi).

Develop

npm install       # postinstall runs `wxt prepare`
npm run dev        # WXT dev build with HMR → dist/
npm run build      # production build → dist/
npm test           # unit tests (vitest)
npm run compile    # typecheck (tsc --noEmit)

Load unpacked (for local changes)

1. npm run build
2. Open chrome://extensions
3. Toggle Developer mode on (top-right)
4. Click Load unpacked and select the dist folder
5. Open https://x.com/messages (or x.com/i/chat). xChat activates automatically.

To pick up code changes: npm run build again, then click the refresh icon on the xChat card in chrome://extensions and reload the X tab. (npm run dev auto-rebuilds.)

If you also have the store build installed, disable it while working on the unpacked one — they share the same extension id, and the store copy can shadow dist/.

Releasing

npm version patch      # or minor / major

That's the whole release: it typechecks, tests, tags, and pushes, and CI takes it from there — build → GitHub Release → update submitted to the Chrome Web Store for review, which publishes to users on approval. One-time credential setup and the failure modes are in docs/RELEASING.md.

Keyboard shortcuts

Key	Action
j / k (↓/↑)	Move to next / previous conversation and open it
Enter / o	Open selected conversation · Enter accepts an open message request
r	Reply — focus the composer (moving never auto-focuses it)
⌘K / Ctrl+K	Command palette
⌘J / Ctrl+J	Quick switcher (fuzzy jump)
/	Search
c	New chat
Enter	Send (in composer) · Shift+Enter newline
Tab / ⇧Tab	Cycle inbox filter (All / Unread / Direct / Groups)
q	Message requests (Esc goes back)
p	Pin / unpin the selected conversation
u	Mark the selected conversation as unread
g g / G	Top / bottom of list
?	Command palette (help)

Every shortcut maps to real X DM functionality — nothing is faked. (X DMs have no archive/star/snooze, so xChat doesn't pretend to; features that would silently no-op were removed.)

AI agents & WebMCP (experimental)

xChat registers WebMCP tools on x.com (document.modelContext, via @mcp-b/global), so an AI agent can drive your DMs through typed tool calls instead of screen-scraping — list conversations, read a thread, search, open, draft, send, pin, triage requests. The tools wrap the same DOM layer as the keyboard shortcuts: X's own client still does all fetching/crypto/sending, so E2E-encrypted threads work like any other.

WebMCP is an emerging W3C proposal (Chrome support is in origin trial), so consider this whole surface experimental — the tool layer works today, but the standard and the ways agents connect to it are still moving.

How it works

X never sees an API call. A MAIN-world content script registers the tools on the page; each tool reads the rendered DOM or drives X's own controls (the same selectors.ts / actions.ts used by the keyboard layer). For agents outside the browser, the optional xchat-mcp bridge relays MCP over a localhost-only WebSocket:

Claude Code / any MCP client
   │  stdio (MCP)
xchat-mcp  (bridge/ — localhost-only WebSocket server, no credentials, no X access)
   ▲  ws://127.0.0.1:9553 (extension dials OUT; nothing listens in the browser)
xChat background worker
   ▲  runtime Port
content-script relay
   ▲  postMessage
MAIN-world WebMCP tools  →  X's rendered DOM & controls

Everything between your MCP client and the page is a dumb pipe: tool calls and results pass through verbatim, the bridge holds no state, and when it isn't running the extension does nothing but one quiet localhost dial with backoff. In-browser agents that speak WebMCP natively (or via bridges like MCP-B) can skip the bridge entirely and use the page tools directly.

Tool	What it does
xchat_state	Where am I: view, open conversation, unread count
xchat_list_conversations	Rendered inbox/requests rows (id, title, snippet) — works from any x.com page
xchat_search_conversations	Fuzzy-search the rendered rows — works from any x.com page
xchat_open_conversation	Open a thread (SPA navigation)
xchat_read_messages	Read a thread's messages (sender + time inferred)
xchat_draft_reply	Fill the composer without sending (leaves the thread open for review)
xchat_send_message	Fill the composer and send — works from any x.com page
xchat_set_inbox_filter	All / Unread / Direct / Groups
xchat_toggle_pin	Pin/unpin via X's own context menu
xchat_open_requests / xchat_close_requests / xchat_accept_request	Message-request triage

Sending is verified, never assumed. xchat_send_message reports success (sent: "confirmed") only after X clears the composer and the sent bubble actually appears in the thread; anything else is an explicit error stating the text was left as an unsent draft. It re-asserts the text before every submit attempt (X's async draft-restore can otherwise swap the content), and escalates through several submit mechanisms because no single one reliably triggers X's send handler. If the tab isn't on the DM view, the tool opens the thread, sends, and returns the tab to where it was — behind a brief visual shield, so the page never visibly changes.

The tools work from any x.com page — list/search/read/send hop to the DM view behind an invisible shield and put the tab back where it was. Two caveats by design: the tools drive your real browser tab (xchat_open_conversation navigates on purpose, and agent calls made while you're actively browsing x.com in that tab can interfere in both directions), and the tab's window must be visible on screen — Chrome doesn't render hidden windows, so X never mounts message content there; the tools detect this and say so rather than timing out.

Connect a local MCP client (optional bridge)

xChat ships its own tiny bridge — bridge/ (xchat-mcp), a stdio MCP server that the extension connects out to over a localhost-only WebSocket. No extra browser extensions, no third-party relays. The bridge only accepts connections whose Origin is the xChat extension itself (its id is pinned), so no other local process can impersonate the extension to read or send DMs (forks: --allow-origin chrome-extension://<your-id>):

cd bridge && npm install && npm run build
claude mcp add --scope user xchat -- node /absolute/path/to/xchat/bridge/dist/cli.js

Open an x.com tab in Chrome (with xChat installed) and the xchat_* tools appear in Claude Code — "read my unread DMs and draft replies" just works. If the tools are missing, call xchat_bridge_status to see why (usually: no x.com tab open). Two gotchas:

• Keep the x.com window visible on screen (it doesn't need focus). Chrome skips rendering for hidden/minimized windows, so X never mounts message content there — reads come back with an explicit "bring the window to the foreground" error instead of data. Inbox listing/search still work hidden; reading and confirming sends don't.
• After updating/reloading the extension, reload any open x.com tabs too — extension reloads orphan the content scripts that relay to the bridge.

You can also poke the tools directly from DevTools on x.com, no bridge required:

navigator.modelContextTesting.listTools()
await navigator.modelContextTesting.executeTool('xchat_state', '{}')

How it holds up when X changes its UI

Every DOM hook lives in one file — src/content/selectors.ts — and is anchored to data-testid/role, never to hashed class names. On boot, a self-check verifies the required hooks exist and shows a small toast if X's markup has drifted, degrading gracefully instead of breaking the page. The full-screen reskin is pure CSS injected via the manifest, so it auto-applies across X's React re-renders with no JS.