Aannotated
GitHub Try the demo

Chrome sidebar · clip · annotate · publish

Clip anything.
Say something.
Always link back.

annotated is a Chrome sidebar extension for grabbing 90 seconds of a video, a passage of an article, or a slice of a podcast — then putting your own commentary on it, on a public page that always credits and links the source, and always lets the rights holder object.

Try it in your browser Read the source
Max clip
90s
Video
240p
Sources
3
Tests
13

What it is

Built to the annotated.com bounty spec. The sidebar is the product; the website is where the annotations live.

The sidebar does the picking

Open the panel on any page. It works out whether you are looking at a YouTube video, an article or a podcast, reads the video's playhead for your in and out points, or grabs the text you highlighted.

The server does the cutting

yt-dlp pulls just the requested range, ffmpeg re-encodes it down to 240p. Articles go through Readability. Podcasts get a ≤90s mono AAC segment.

The page does the crediting

Every annotation gets a public landing page carrying your commentary, a link back to the source at the exact timestamp, and a "File a claim" button for whoever owns it.

The limits are the point

Spec checklist

RequirementStatusEvidence
Max clip size: 90 secondspass Asked the API for 300s; server returned 90s.
Video downgraded to 240px (< 480p)pass 4K source encoded to 426×240.
Every clip links back to its source URLpass All annotations checked, 0 failures.
Visible "File a claim" on every annotationpass Button + form, works with JavaScript off.
Account creation via X or Google onlypass Real OAuth2, X with PKCE. The local dev sign-in returns 403 the moment a provider is configured.
Public feed with follow + commentpass Cursor-paginated feed, driven through the UI.
Commentary supports text and recorded audiopass Audio-only and text+audio both publish; duration probed server-side.
Sidebar Chrome extension is the primary surfacebuilt MV3 side panel, content script, service worker, pairing flow. Load it unpacked to try it — it has not been run in a packaged release.

What it looks like

An annotation page for a YouTube clip, showing the 240p video, the source link with its timestamp range, and the author's commentary.
A YouTube clip — 240p, 42s, source deep-linked to 0:43
The bottom of an annotation page showing the File a claim panel with a filed-claim confirmation.
Every annotation can be disputed
The public feed showing annotations of different source types.
The public feed
An annotation page for a news article, showing the extracted passage and byline.
An article passage, byline intact
The timeline on a phone: circular avatars threaded on a vertical line, with the red plus button floating over it.
On a phone — the thread, and the red plus

Run the real thing

The demo on this site is browser-only. The full build needs a server — that is where the clipping actually happens.

# needs node 20+, ffmpeg and yt-dlp
brew install ffmpeg yt-dlp
git clone https://github.com/alsayadi/annotated.git
cd annotated
npm install
npm run doctor   # checks binaries, auth and YouTube reachability
npm run seed     # fills the feed by really clipping two sources
npm start        # http://localhost:4000

Then the sidebar

  1. Open chrome://extensions, turn on Developer mode.
  2. Load unpacked → pick the extension/ folder.
  3. Pin annotated, click it on any page, hit Connect account.

Known limits