Context-Aware Bookmarks: Auto-Switching Links by Active Domain

Static bookmark bars don't match how people actually work. The links you want while you're in Jira are different from the ones you want in GitHub or your cloud console - but they all compete for the same strip of screen.

CABE is a Chrome extension that makes bookmarks context-aware: it watches which site you're on and surfaces the matching workspace of links automatically. It also resolves dynamic, parameterized bookmarks and exposes them through the omnibox for keyboard-first jumps.

Part of the engineering behind CABE.

Knowing Where You Are

CABE listens to two tab events: onActivated (you switched tabs) and onUpdated (the active tab navigated). Both resolve to the current hostname, which is the key the rest of the system keys off:

function currentHost(url) {
  try { return new URL(url).hostname.replace(/^www\./, ''); }
  catch { return null; }
}

chrome.tabs.onActivated.addListener(async ({ tabId }) => {
  const tab = await chrome.tabs.get(tabId);
  applyWorkspaceFor(currentHost(tab.url));
});

chrome.tabs.onUpdated.addListener((_id, info, tab) => {
  if (info.status === 'complete' && tab.active) {
    applyWorkspaceFor(currentHost(tab.url));
  }
});

Matching a Workspace

Each workspace declares the domains it owns. CABE finds the most specific match - so company.atlassian.net beats a generic fallback - and swaps the visible bookmark set to that workspace's links:

function matchWorkspace(host, workspaces) {
  return workspaces
    .filter((w) => w.domains.some((d) => host === d || host.endsWith('.' + d)))
    .sort((a, b) => b.specificity - a.specificity)[0] || null;
}

Dynamic Bookmarks and the Omnibox

Some links aren't fixed URLs but templates - “open this Jira ticket,” “search our docs.” CABE stores them with placeholders and resolves the template against a query at click time:

function resolveTemplate(template, vars) {
  return template.replace(/\{\{(\w+)\}\}/g, (_, key) => encodeURIComponent(vars[key] ?? ''));
}
// resolveTemplate('https://jira/browse/{{ticket}}', { ticket: 'ABC-42' })
// => 'https://jira/browse/ABC-42'

The same resolver powers the omnibox: register a keyword, and typing it plus an argument jumps straight to the resolved URL without ever opening the bookmark bar:

chrome.omnibox.onInputEntered.addListener((text) => {
  const [keyword, ...rest] = text.split(' ');
  const bookmark = findByKeyword(keyword);
  if (bookmark) chrome.tabs.update({ url: resolveTemplate(bookmark.template, { q: rest.join(' ') }) });
});

Conclusion: Bookmarks That Follow Your Work

By keying off the active domain and resolving templates on demand, CABE turns a static bookmark bar into something that reshapes itself around whatever you're doing. Tab listeners for context, specificity-ranked matching, and a tiny template resolver - wired to the omnibox - add up to bookmarks that are always the right ones.