Tutorial · 6 min read
Build a YouTube Chrome Extension with AI in 10 Minutes
End-to-end walkthrough: build a Chrome extension that customizes YouTube — Shorts hider, autoplay killer, focus mode — with a single AI prompt.
YouTube extensions are the perfect first project: clear user value, simple DOM manipulation, and a huge audience. Here's how to build one in ten minutes.
The prompt
Build a Chrome extension for YouTube that hides Shorts from the homepage and sidebar, disables autoplay on the watch page, and adds a toolbar toggle to turn each feature on or off. Store the toggle state in chrome.storage.sync.
What ManifestGo generates
- manifest.json with host permissions scoped to `https://www.youtube.com/*`.
- A content script that hides Shorts via CSS and disables autoplay via JS.
- A popup with two toggle switches wired to `chrome.storage.sync`.
- Icons in 16, 48, and 128 pixel variants.
Loading it into Chrome
- Download the .zip and unzip into any folder.
- Open chrome://extensions and enable Developer Mode (top right).
- Click 'Load unpacked' and pick the folder.
- Open youtube.com — Shorts are gone, autoplay is off, the popup toggles work.
From here, iterate: 'add a focus timer', 'hide comments', 'block recommendations on the sidebar'. Each follow-up is one prompt.