TAMIAS RECORDER
Installing the Recorder
The Recorder is a Chrome extension. It lets you open a real dApp — Uniswap, Aave, anything — against a private fork of your Safe, and turns whatever you do there into a Safe transaction to review and sign, instead of nothing going on-chain.
It is in the Chrome Web Store, so this is one click and Chrome keeps it up to date afterwards. If your browser cannot reach the store, or you already run the older zip build, section 2 is still the manual route.
- You need Chrome, version 116 or newer. Other Chromium browsers — Edge, Brave, Arc, Opera — can install from the Chrome Web Store too. Safari and Firefox use a different extension format and cannot run this.
- Chrome will ask for access to all sites before it installs. That is a real permission and the next section says exactly what it is for.
1 · INSTALL
Three steps, once
Open the listing and press Add to Chrome
Tamias Recorder in the Chrome Web Store. Press Add to Chrome, then Add extension in the dialog that follows.
Read what it asks for
The dialog says the Recorder can read and change all your data on all websites. That is the <all_urls> permission, and it is worth a moment rather than a reflex, because it is the broadest one Chrome has.
The short version: the Recorder has to be present on whichever dApp you choose before you choose it, and it cannot know which that is in advance. On any page where you have not started a recording session it asks itself one question — is this tab recording? — gets no, and stops. The long version is in the privacy policy, which lists every permission and what it is for.
Pin it, and go to the app
Click the puzzle-piece icon next to Chrome’s address bar and press the pin beside Tamias Recorder, so its icon stays visible. Nothing else to configure, and no account to create inside the extension.
Now open the app, open a Safe, and start a recording. It will find the extension without a reload.
2 · THE OTHER WAY
Installing from a zip instead
Three reasons to be in this section, and only three:
- Your browser cannot reach the store. A work machine managed by an employer often blocks store installs by policy.
- You already installed the zip before the listing existed, and want to keep that copy rather than switch.
- You want a specific build — the zip link always serves the newest, but it is not waiting behind a store review.
A store install and a zip install are two separate extensions as far as Chrome is concerned, and both of them answer the app. Run both at once and which one wins is a race. If you are moving from the zip to the store, install from the store first, then Remove the old card at chrome://extensions.
Two things to have ready before you start. A folder you will not delete — unlike a store extension, this one keeps running from the folder you unzip it into, so moving that folder or emptying Downloads stops it working. And Developer mode, which you turn on in step 4 and leave on: since Chrome 134, turning it off does not hide unpacked extensions, it disables them.
Download the zip
Download tamias-recorder-latest.zip. That link always serves the newest build, so it is the same link whether this is your first install or your fifth.
Unzip it, somewhere permanent
Double-click the zip. You get a folder called tamias-recorder-latest containing a file called manifest.json and a few others.
Move that folder out of Downloads. Chrome reads the extension from this folder every time it starts, so it has to stay put. Somewhere in your home folder is fine — on a Mac, ~/Applications or ~/Documents/tamias-recorder; on Windows, C:\Users\you\tamias-recorder. What matters is only that you will not clean it up later without meaning to.
Open Chrome's extensions page
Copy this, paste it into the address bar, and press Enter. It goes in the address bar, not a search box, and it will not autocomplete as you type.
chrome://extensionsIf you would rather click: the ⋮ menu at the top right → Extensions → Manage Extensions.
Turn on Developer mode
Top right of that page there is a switch labelled Developer mode. Turn it on. Three buttons appear along the top left, which is what you need.
Leave it on afterwards. This is the part people get wrong: from Chrome 134 onwards, switching Developer mode off does not just hide those buttons — it disables every extension installed this way, including this one. If the Recorder ever stops being found, check this switch first.
Click “Load unpacked”, and pick the folder
Press Load unpacked — the leftmost of the three new buttons — and select the folder from step 2.
Select the folder that contains manifest.json, not the folder containing that folder. This is the single most common mistake, and Chrome’s error for it — Manifest file is missing or unreadable — does not say so. If you see that, go one level deeper and try again.
Check it, and pin it
A card reading Tamias Recorder appears on the extensions page. That is it — nothing else to configure, no account to create inside the extension.
The card shows a version number. That is the only place the version is written down — the download is always called tamias-recorder-latest.zip, so the filename never tells you which build you got.
Optionally, click the puzzle-piece icon next to Chrome’s address bar and press the pin beside Tamias Recorder, so its icon stays visible. Then go back to the app and start a recording — it will find the extension without a reload.
3 · EXPECT THIS
Chrome warns about developer mode — if you used the zip
A bubble with roughly this wording appears when you start Chrome, sometimes every time. It offers to Disable.
Dismiss it with the ×. If you press Disable, the Recorder is switched off and the app will report it as not installed — you can turn it back on from chrome://extensions.
This is worth understanding rather than just clicking past, because it reads like an accusation and is not one. Chrome shows that bubble to everyone running any extension loaded from a folder, whatever it does. It is a statement about the install method — “this did not come from the Web Store, so Google has not reviewed it” — and not a finding about this extension.
There is no supported way to silence it, and turning Developer mode off silences it by disabling the extension, which is not a fix. What does end it is installing from the Chrome Web Store instead — a store extension is not a developer-mode extension, so the bubble has nothing to say about it.
You may also see a zip-installed Recorder switched off by itself after a Chrome update. Same cause, same fix: chrome://extensions, toggle it back on.
4 · UPDATING
Updating to a new version
Installed from the store: nothing to do. Chrome checks for extension updates on its own, a few times a day, and installs them in the background. To hurry it along, open chrome://extensions, turn on Developer mode, and press Update — then turn Developer mode back off if you would rather it were off.
Installed from a zip: it does not update itself, and there is no prompt when a new version exists. When one is released:
Download the new zip and unzip it
Same link as before — it always serves the newest build. Replace the contents of the folder you chose in step 2: same folder, new files. Keeping the path the same means Chrome treats it as the same extension rather than a second copy.
Press Reload
Open chrome://extensions and press the circular Reload arrow on the Tamias Recorder card. The version on the card should change.
If you unzip somewhere new instead, load that folder and then Remove the old card — two copies of the Recorder both answer the app, and which one wins is a race. The same is true of a store copy sitting beside a zip copy.
5 · IF IT GOES WRONG
Troubleshooting
- The app says the extension is not found — check the card is present and its toggle is on at chrome://extensions. Then reload the app’s tab.
- Nothing records — the Recorder only intercepts inside the tab it opened for you when you pressed Start. Opening the dApp yourself in another tab records nothing, by design.
- Add to Chrome does nothing, or the listing will not open — your browser is managed by your employer and their policy blocks store installs. Ask whoever administers it, or use the zip route above, which the same policy may also block.
- “Manifest file is missing or unreadable” (zip only) — you selected the wrong folder. Pick the one that directly contains manifest.json.
- It worked yesterday and not today (zip only) — most often Developer mode got switched off, or the folder moved. Both are in section 2.
Still stuck? Mail hello@tamias.io with your Chrome version (from chrome://version), whether you installed from the store or a zip, and what the extensions page shows.