Starter Kit
Chrome Extension Boilerplate
LightningAddon is a production-ready Chrome extension boilerplate that includes authentication, Stripe billing, typed messaging, and Shadow DOM isolation from day one. Stop wiring up infrastructure and start building your extension's actual features.
What's Included
Manifest V3 Ready
Built for Chrome's current Manifest V3 standard. Service workers, declarativeNetRequest, and all MV3 APIs are configured out of the box.
Authentication Built In
Firebase and Supabase auth adapters handle sign-up, sign-in, token refresh, and session persistence across popup, background, and content script contexts.
Stripe Billing
Subscription and one-time payment flows with webhook handling. Gate features by plan, manage trials, and handle upgrades/downgrades.
Typed Messaging
End-to-end TypeScript message bus between popup, background script, content scripts, side panel, and options page. No more untyped chrome.runtime.sendMessage calls.
Shadow DOM Content Scripts
Inject UI into any webpage with full CSS isolation via Shadow DOM. Your styles never leak into the host page, and the host page's styles never break yours.
Storage Migrations
Versioned storage migration system so you can evolve your data schema across extension updates without losing user data.
Turborepo Monorepo
Extension, API server, and marketing site in one repository. Shared TypeScript types, coordinated builds, and single-command development.
7-Browser Support
While optimized for Chrome, the same codebase builds for Firefox, Safari, Brave, Edge, Opera, and Zen with browser-specific configuration handled automatically.
Why Use a Chrome Extension Boilerplate?
Building a Chrome extension from scratch means solving the same infrastructure problems every extension needs: how to authenticate users across extension contexts, how to handle billing, how to send typed messages between content scripts and background workers, how to persist and migrate storage as your schema evolves.
These problems are well-understood but time-consuming to implement correctly. Auth token refresh in service workers has specific edge cases. Stripe webhook verification from an extension backend requires careful setup. Shadow DOM isolation needs proper event delegation.
LightningAddon solves all of these with tested, production-ready code. You get a working Chrome extension with auth, billing, and messaging on day one, then customize it for your specific use case.
Read more about shipping a browser extension SaaS in a weekend, or see how Stripe billing works in Chrome extensions.
Chrome-Specific Features
- Manifest V3 service workers — background scripts use the MV3 service worker lifecycle with proper keep-alive patterns for long-running operations.
- Chrome Side Panel API — built-in side panel support with typed messaging to other extension contexts.
- declarativeNetRequest — rule-based network request modification that passes Chrome Web Store review.
- Chrome identity API integration — OAuth flows that work within Chrome's security model.
- Web Store submission ready — minimal permissions, proper permission justifications, and compliance with Chrome Web Store developer program policies.
Preparing for launch? Check our Chrome Web Store launch checklist and learn how to avoid common Web Store rejection reasons.
Frequently Asked Questions
Free boilerplates give you a build system and maybe a popup template. LightningAddon includes production infrastructure: auth flows, billing integration, typed messaging between all extension contexts, storage migrations, and Shadow DOM isolation. These are the features that take weeks to build correctly and are required for any extension that charges users.
Yes. The boilerplate follows Chrome Web Store best practices: minimal permissions by default, proper permission justifications, MV3 compliance, and no remote code execution. We cover common rejection reasons in our blog post on Chrome Web Store launch checklist.
Yes. LightningAddon builds from a single codebase to Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Brave, Edge, Opera, and Zen. You develop against Chrome APIs and the framework handles browser-specific differences at build time. See our guide on building for Chrome and Firefox from a single codebase.
TypeScript throughout. React for popup and options page UI (swappable). Turborepo for monorepo management. Your choice of Firebase or Supabase for auth. Stripe for billing. The extension core is framework-agnostic — content scripts and background scripts are pure TypeScript.
Start Building Your Chrome Extension
$149 one-time. Full source code. Auth, billing, messaging, and 7-browser support included.