// ZWIRE — FORKED CHROMIUM · TILING HUD

Tmux-style tiling browser · ⌘K palette · vim nav · session CRUD · 8-scheme HUD · browser-wide audio EQ · on a real Blink engine · 24-patch native fork (tag 150.0.7871.46)

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>_ZWIRE REFERENCE

zwire is a Chromium/Blink browser forked into a cyberpunk HUD — a real engine running a keyboard-driven workspace: a tmux-style tiling overlay where every pane is an embedded webview, a ⌘K command palette, vim navigation, durable session management, a browser-wide audio EQ + live meters, and HUD reimplementations of Chrome's own internal pages. The hud-internal extension layer is ~7,400 lines across 11 subsystems and 15 pages; under it, a 24-patch native fork restyles the chrome the extension layer can't reach. For patch-by-patch numbers see the Engineering Report.

A TILING, PALETTE-DRIVEN BROWSER ON A REAL BLINK ENGINE.

ZTMUX TILING · ⌘K PALETTE · SESSION CRUD · 8-SCHEME HUD · BROWSER-WIDE AUDIO EQ · 24-PATCH NATIVE FORK

24
native fork patches
45
tmux prefix actions
15
HUD pages
8
HUD color schemes
~7.4k
HUD extension LOC
150.0.7871.46
fork series tag

#WHAT IT IS

A keyboard-driven cyberpunk workspace on a genuine Blink engine — a HUD extension layer compiled into a native fork.

Tiling HUD workspace

The ztmux overlay: tmux-style tiling where every pane is an embedded webview — unlimited windows, recursive splits, zoom, layouts + preset grids, copy-mode, marks, and partial synchronize-panes. Rebindable prefix, 45 remappable actions.

Sessions · palette · vim

Durable named sessions (windows/panes/webviews) with full CRUD + SVG layout previews. A ⌘K command palette, vim-style motions, a find bar, a powerline status bar, a light/dark toggle, and HUD reimplementations of Chrome's internal pages — 15 pages in all.

Browser-wide audio engine

An always-on zdsp-core chain — parametric EQ + channel strip + saturation/dynamics (waveshaper, exciter, bit-crush, gate, compressor, auto-wah) + modulation (chorus, flanger, phaser, ring-mod, tremolo) + time FX (delay, reverb) + spatial (Haas, cross-feed, auto-pan, width) + brickwall limiter — compiled into the audio service (patches 0022–0024) so every stream (media, MSE/YouTube, Web Audio, WebRTC) is processed before the OS device, live-reconfigurable with nothing open. A live Audio HUD page renders the real post-DSP spectrum, meters, and stereo scope over the native host — no tabCapture.

Lifecycle hooks

Bind stryke scripts to ~50 browser events — tab / window / navigation / download / bookmark / history / terminal / scheme / audio / ⌘K-command lifecycle, plus an action catch-all. The service worker fires them and zwire-host runs each enabled hook whose event matches, dispatching the script's {actions} (notify / open / exec / pub). A Hooks HUD page with a searchable event picker and a Monaco + stryke-LSP editor.

Native 24-patch fork

The source build zwire ships as. A C++ patch series restyles the native chrome the extension layer can't reach: tab shapes, UI font, neon toolbar, omnibox, product strings, the 8 HUD schemes in the color mixer + DevTools, native Views menus/dialogs — plus allow-framing for the tiling overlay, ⌘K-palette focus hand-off, a forced zwire new-tab, session restore, and the browser-wide audio EQ + meters.

Dedicated profile

Everything runs against $ZWIRE_STATE/profile (default ~/Library/Application Support/com.menketechnologies.zwire on macOS) — bookmarks, history, sessions kept separate from system Chrome.

@WHY A REAL BLINK BASE

zpwrchrome is a Manifest V3 extension needing userScripts, declarativeNetRequestWithHostAccess, nativeMessaging, webRequest, a service-worker background, and minimum_chrome_version: 127. None of that runs on WebKit (Tauri/Safari) or Servo — only a genuine Chromium engine loads it.

The fork compiles unbranded (is_chrome_branded=false) — no Google logo, no "for automated testing" banner (that stripe is exclusive to Chrome for Testing). A Chromium build also keeps the --load-extension switch that preloads zpwrchrome, removed from branded Chrome in v137. Stock Google Chrome can no longer be scripted this way; a Chromium build can.

&ARCHITECTURE

Layered from the compiled fork base, up through the HUD workspace, to the native chrome the fork restyles.

ComponentRole
BaseThe compiled fork/ build — a patched Chromium (pinned tag 150.0.7871.46), unbranded release. This is what zwire ships as.
Rebrandscripts/rebrand-macos.sh patches the base bundle's Dock name to zwire + a cyberpunk .icns, deletes CFBundleIconName, and re-signs ad-hoc so macOS honors it.
Themetheme/ — a Chrome theme mapping the HUD palette onto frame / toolbar / tabs (colors only). Present but not launcher-loaded: a static theme applies last and would override the fork's color mixer (0002) and the internal-HUD skin.
New tabnewtab/ — a chrome_url_overrides.newtab extension: the full HUD (Orbitron, CRT scanlines, neon omnibox), fonts vendored locally.
HUD workspaceextensions/hud-internal (~7,400 LOC) — the ztmux tiling overlay (two thin adapters, ztmux-config.js + ztmux-pane.js, driving ZGui.tmux; each pane an embedded webview; rebindable prefix; partial synchronize-panes; durable session CRUD), the ⌘K palette (zpalette), vim nav + keymap (zvim/zkeys), find (zfind), the powerline status bar (zpowerline.js feeding ZGui.powerline), the 8-scheme picker (with light/dark toggle), and 15 HUD pages (incl. Sessions, a Hooks page, a Keyboard remapper, a Host console, an App Store + a live Audio page). MV3 content scripts on chrome://*/* + http(s), bridged to a native host. Needs --extensions-on-chrome-urls.
GUI toolkitextensions/hud-internal/lib/zgui-core — the shared ZGui component library (253 webui/* modules incl. ZGui.tmux, palette, powerline, fzf, colorscheme, and the audio meter chain), a submodule loaded straight from path (never copied). Every HUD page composes ZGui components; zwire supplies only the glue.
Native hostextensions/hud-internal/native/zwire-host — a single self-contained Rust binary (native-messaging host + Unix-socket NDJSON daemon: sysmon, fs, exec, PTY, KV, hooks, OS ops), its own submodule. Backs the Host console, feeds the powerline stats, and is the filesystem bridge for the audio EQ/meters.
Power-toolextensions/zpwrchrome — the MV3 extension, loaded as a submodule (reuse, not copy).
Launcherbin/zwire starts the base against $ZWIRE_STATE/profile with newtab + zpwrchrome + hud-internal loaded and --extensions-on-chrome-urls set. Any dir missing a manifest.json is skipped, so a missing submodule degrades gracefully.
Forkfork/ — the source build zwire ships as: a 24-patch series restyles native tabs, colors, UI font, toolbar, omnibox, the DevTools Theme dropdown, and native Views menus/dialogs, plus allow-framing, ⌘K-palette focus, a forced zwire new-tab, session restore, and a browser-wide audio EQ + live meters.

◱HUD & FORK DIAGRAMS

The keyboard-driven surfaces and the native fork, as architecture diagrams. For the whole stack and 30+ more, see the illustrated invention ledger.

zwire dual tmux engine: one prefix key drives an in-page iframe overlay and an OS-window tiling engine sharing one nested tmux model the zwire native fork stack: a 24-patch pinned-Chromium fork under the ~7,400-line hud-internal extension layer, launched by bin/zwire zwire's Command-K palette: a custom command is a chain of typed steps running identically across three isolation contexts, with shell steps reaching the OS via the native host zwire's browser automation bus: a stryke script (external terminal, page palette, new-tab palette, or HUD page) reaches zwire-host, which runs stryke and stamps a browser.* action into a file-backed KV; the MV3 service worker's execZbCmd — kept alive across the native round-trip by the persistent sysinfo port — is the single executor that runs the Chrome API call, across a 161-verb surface with 99 browser.* verbs spanning tabs, window tiling, tab groups, downloads, browsing-data, reading list, power, and management

♪AUDIO ENGINE — IPC TOPOLOGY

How the HUD Audio dashboard, zwire-host, the $STATE files, the browser process, and the sandboxed audio service communicate for the browser-wide output DSP (patches 0022/0024). zwire-host and the audio service share no direct channel — the file is the rendezvous and the browser is the only party on both sides (filesystem + mojom).

▶ CONFIG  UI → engine ◀ METERS  engine → UI ◎ launch seed · bin/zwire → --zwire-audio-eq (reads audio-eq at start) ⊘ SANDBOXED RENDERER sandboxed page audio.js — HUD Audio buildSpec() / parseSpec() live meter charts — no FS, no mojom — USER PRIV zwire-host native binary Native Messaging (stdio) fs_write · fs_watch meter_stream pub/sub bus + peers — no Chromium IPC — DISK $STATE audio-eq   config · durable meters   frames · ephemeral user-owned files ★ TRUSTED BROKER BROWSER PROCESS unsandboxed full user FS authority RepeatingTimer poll   25ms cfg · 33ms meters holds the mojom pipe — the only bridge — ⊘ SANDBOXED AUDIO SERVICE sandboxed utility ZwireAudioEq · OnMoreData() per-stream DSP chain Goertzel meter frame — can't read files / sockets — 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 ✕ no direct channel — zwire-host and the audio service share no endpoint ZwireAudioEq chain (per output stream): preamp ▸ EQ cascade ▸ gain ▸ drive ▸ compressor ▸ delay ▸ reverb ▸ M/S width ▸ pan / mono ▸ brickwall limiter

$INSTALL

Clone with submodules, run the installer, launch. Re-run install.sh after a base upgrade.

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/MenkeTechnologies/zwire.git cd zwire scripts/install.sh # fetch base + link `zwire` on PATH + rebrand (macOS) zwire # launch

~THE NATIVE FORK

The HUD workspace — tiling, palette, sessions, vim, the 8-scheme picker — is extension code. But a theme extension changes colors only; it can't reshape tabs, fonts, or the toolbar (native C++). To put the whole chrome in the HUD, zwire is compiled from a patched Chromium — this is what it ships as.

The fork/ build is a 24-patch series (trapezoid tabs, cyberpunk palette, mono UI font, neon toolbar, sharp omnibox, zwire strings, 8 HUD schemes in the color mixer + DevTools, native Views menus/dialogs bound to the HUD palette, allow-framing for the ztmux overlay, ⌘K-palette focus hand-off, a forced zwire new-tab, session restore, and a browser-wide audio EQ + live output meters) authored against the pinned tag and verified apply-clean. It costs a ~100 GB checkout, a 1–4 hr first build, and ongoing rebase maintenance — no paid infra needed, but it won't fit on stock GitHub-hosted runners (checkout > disk, cold build > the 6 h job cap), so build it locally or on a self-hosted runner with a warm checkout. See fork/ and the Engineering Report.